Real Kato Blog

This will be of interest to only one or two of my regular readers, I'm sure.

Last week, Sanyo came out with new camcorders that support a video format called "iFrame", and it's a format developed by Apple. It appears to be a 960x540 H.264 video format; that's exactly one-quarter the size of 1920x1080 HD video.

Why the new format? My guess is: Apple wanted a standard camcorder format based on H.264, so that iMovie could edit the video without trans-coding first. Also, Apple wanted a widescreen (16:9) format with square pixels (not anamorphic) that took up less space than HD video. Most camcorders today use 720x480 for SD video, but that's not a widescreen format.

So why come out with this now? The conventional wisdom is that Apple is planning a video push in two areas: one, the long-neglected AppleTV device, and two, the much-rumored tablet device. It's conceivable that Apple would choose iFrame to publish non-HD TV shows, to avoid having to letterbox the video.

Expect to see an announcement from Apple soon.

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Posted by Ken in: techwatch

College Football Recap

Sunday, 2009 October 18 - 10:14 am

Michigan wins easily over an overmatched Delaware State team; N.C. State gets dismantled by Boston College; Ohio State and Virginia Tech lose.

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Posted by Ken in: sports

College Football Recap

Tuesday, 2009 October 13 - 6:10 pm

A bad weekend in football: Michigan loses to Iowa; N.C. State loses to Duke.

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Posted by Ken in: sports

College Football Recap

Thursday, 2009 October 8 - 7:34 am

Uh, this is late, I know. It's not because Michigan lost last week; I just haven't had the opportunity to post.

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Posted by Ken in: sports

The Great Escalator Versus Stairs Debate

Sunday, 2009 September 27 - 3:17 pm

I had an interesting discussion with some co-workers a while back. The question posed was: if you walk up an escalator that's going down (i.e., you go the wrong way on a down escalator, at an upward speed exactly opposite the downward speed of the escalator), would that give you the same amount of exercise as if you walked the equivalent number of stationary stairs?

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Posted by Ken in: interesting

College Football Recap

Sunday, 2009 September 27 - 12:39 pm

Michigan and N.C. State win thrillers; four top-ten teams lose.

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Posted by Ken in: sports

Books: The Lost Symbol

Sunday, 2009 September 27 - 10:47 am

Dan Brown's recently released (and highly anticipated) novel, The Lost Symbol, is another Robert Langdon saga in the vein of The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons.

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Posted by Ken in: books, reviews

College Football Recap

Sunday, 2009 September 20 - 11:11 am

Michigan and NC State win; Michigan State loses to Notre Dame, USC gets upset by Washington.

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Posted by Ken in: sports

College Football Recap

Sunday, 2009 September 13 - 11:28 am

Wow. Just, wow.

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Posted by Ken in: sports

Ellen Degeneres!

Wednesday, 2009 September 9 - 11:00 pm

Apparently, Ellen Degeneres is going to be the new American Idol judge. That is FANTASTIC. Even though she doesn't have any kind of musical background (aside from her penchant for singing Salt 'n' Pepa songs on her talk show every now and then), she'll surely be at least as good a singing judge as Paula ever was. And unlike Kara, she's enough of a celebrity heavyweight to provide a counterpunch to Simon. Best of all, now the show will be intentionally funny, not "oh my God she's so drunk" funny.

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Posted by Ken in: television

Today's Apple Announcements

Wednesday, 2009 September 9 - 6:30 pm

Apple held a media event today, and despite the coincident timing with the Beatles Rock Band release, it had nothing to do with releasing Beatles music on iTunes.

Perhaps the biggest news was the fact that Steve Jobs himself gave the presentation, a sign to worried shareholders that Jobs was indeed back in charge. However, Steve is looking more and more Grand Moff Tarkin-esque every day... hopefully he'll start putting on some weight now that he's recovered from his transplant surgery.

Read more...

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Posted by Ken in: techwatch

College Football Recap

Monday, 2009 September 7 - 12:54 pm

Woot, college football has returned.

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Posted by Ken in: sports

This Is Why Newspapers Fail

Tuesday, 2009 September 1 - 4:03 pm

If you're a Michigan football fan at all, you're probably aware of the recent hoo-hah that some folks are calling "PracticeGate". Last Friday, The Detroit Free Press published a sensationalist article accusing Coach Rich Rodriguez of violating NCAA rules concerning limits on practice time for football players.

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Posted by Ken in: bloggers, commentary, sports

Five Lessons: Mac Versus PC Myths

Saturday, 2009 August 29 - 12:26 pm

With yesterday's release of Mac OS X "Snow Leopard", and the imminent release of Windows 7, I thought this would be a good time to cover some common misconceptions of the whole Mac versus PC question.

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Posted by Ken in: techwatch

The Post in Which I Advocate Medieval Torture

Saturday, 2009 August 29 - 10:03 am

Long time no blog, I know. And there's so much going on! I'll just cram a bunch of unrelated things into this one post.

By the way, I remember the first time I heard my Dad say "Long time no see", when I was like seven years old; I thought he was on acid or something. "No see"? What kind of sentence structure is that? Can you please diagram that on the blackboard?

Anyway... so what's the most spectacular news item of the past few weeks?

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Posted by Ken in: commentary

Five Lessons: Foreign Words

Monday, 2009 August 17 - 10:01 pm

Today's lesson: five cool foreign words or phrases that you can work into your everyday vocabulary.

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Posted by Ken in: interesting

Five Quotes

Thursday, 2009 August 13 - 11:53 pm

I've been having trouble coming up with a new Five Lessons topic, so I'm doing something a little different today. My friend Anna wants each of her friends to come up with an original quote to put on a wall. So far I've come up with these possibilities:

Truth is in your heart; love is in your hands.

If someone else shows you the way, it's the wrong way. Choose your own path.

God doesn't hate you. He's just not that into you.

To improve your life, improve yourself.

Happiness is not found at the bottom of a liquor bottle; it's somewhere in the middle.

I kinda wanted the quotes to be funnier, but I didn't want to sacrifice profundity.

Anyone have their own original quotes? And I do mean original, not something you read somewhere.

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Posted by Ken in: interesting

Five Lessons: Probability and Statistics

Tuesday, 2009 August 4 - 5:27 pm

For today: Five Lessons in Probability and Statistics.. The math behind probability is fairly straightforward, but it often leads to counterintuitive results that confuse a lot of people. I've written to some degree about this topic before. I find this kind of stuff interesting; I guess I just like proving that intuition isn't a substitute for real thought.

So here we go...

Read more...

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Posted by Ken in: interesting

Not.

Wednesday, 2009 July 29 - 5:35 pm

Here's a good one. Apple Hints at OSX on PCs. The logic behind this is that Apple is implicitly sanctioning a hack that would allow Mac OS X to run on Dell Mini netbook computers.

But what really happened is that someone posted a link to a hackintosh utility (a bootloader that would allow Mac OS X to boot on a Dell Mini) on some Dell forum website. Dell didn't take action against this post, and Apple didn't take action against Dell for not taking action. Somehow, inaction over inaction over unsanctioned user activity has become Apple officially "hinting" at something that makes no business sense whatsoever. Come on.

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Posted by Ken in: techwatch

Circular Reasoning

Wednesday, 2009 July 29 - 5:27 pm

There's an increasing problem in the Interwebs these days. It goes something like this.

A blogger or small-time web site posts an unsubstantiated rumor or speculation about something (like, say, an Apple "iTablet").
A semi-mainstream media outlet, like CNet's news.com, picks up on the rumor, but makes the rumor sound like fact by putting a headline on it like "Apple ready to release iTablet this fall".
Executives from companies unrelated to the rumor (like record company execs) read these reports and speculate about the rumored product.
Mainstream media outlets publish these quotes as evidence that the rumored product is actually coming to market.
Bloggers quote the mainstream media article and now reference the rumor as certainty.

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Posted by Ken in: bloggers, techwatch

Five Lessons: Macroeconomics

Thursday, 2009 July 23 - 10:48 pm

Today's lesson: Five Lessons in Macroeconomics. Or, Five Things Conservatives Get Wrong About the Economy. This one is a little political, so sorry. Also, I'm just an armchair economist, so while I've put a fair amount of thought into these arguments, I'm not going to claim enough expertise to be 100% sure I'm right.

Enough disclaimers. On with the smackdown.

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Posted by Ken in: interesting, politics

Paula Abdul gone from Idol?

Tuesday, 2009 July 21 - 9:59 am

Ooh, an off-season Idol post. Sorry, non-Idol fans.

Paula Abdul hasn't yet renewed her contract with "American Idol" for next year, leading to speculation that she might be gone from the show. Paula fans have responded with a Twitter and email campaign to keep her on the show.

I had a suspicion that Kara DioGuardi was brought in as a potential replacement for Paula. For me, Paula doesn't add a lot of value as a judge; it's not useful to the contestants if all your comments are always positive. Also, she seemed drunk most of the time. However, I'm not sure the Kara experiment is working out all that well, either. I think she and Simon genuinely dislike each other.

For this year, anyway, I suspect Paula will be back. This is all probably just an attempt by Paula's agents to get a fatter contract, what with Ryan Seacrest just signing a $15 million deal.

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Posted by Ken in: television

Five Lessons: Hard-to-Explain Rules in Sports

Sunday, 2009 July 19 - 11:27 am

This is a new feature here on realkato.com. Periodically, I'm going to start posting five (hopefully informative) tidbits on a particular topic. We'll see if this feature lasts longer than my earlier "Learn Something Every Day" feature that fizzled after a few days. If there are particular topics you'd like me to cover, let me know.

Today's topic: Five Hard-to-Explain Rules in Sports. The assumption here is that you're a casual sports spectator who knows the basics about a sport, but then some obscure rule comes into play that leaves you wondering what happened.

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Posted by Ken in: interesting, sports

Sister-in-law-in-law

Monday, 2009 July 13 - 10:48 pm

What do you call the new wife of your brother-in-law? Is there some special term for that, or is she still just your sister-in-law?

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Posted by Ken in: life

Japan Photos

Sunday, 2009 July 5 - 3:04 pm

A few photos from the trip, after the jump. I'll have more up on Facebook later.

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Posted by Ken in: life

Are We Done Yet?

Tuesday, 2009 June 30 - 1:37 pm

The Minnesota Supreme Court has ordered that Al Franken be certified as the winner of last November's Senate election. Should the Senate proceed with seating Franken next week, that will give the Democrats a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate.

Coleman may still pursue challenges in federal court, but dude... just give up already. The race is over; you lost.

Let the Republican agonizing and wailing begin. (Or perhaps I should say, continue.)

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Posted by Ken in: politics

Back in Blog

Tuesday, 2009 June 30 - 12:38 pm

So, I'm back from a ten-day trip to Japan, hence the long hiatus. I wrote some stuff about Japan earlier and my observations about it haven't changed much... so excuse the re-blog-cycling, but you can just go back and read that older post.

Amy's already posted some photos on Facebook. I'll put some photos here soon, perhaps this weekend.

Oh, in other news? Mom and Dad are now reading my blog. I'll, uh, try not to let that affect my writing.

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Posted by Ken in: life

Sarah Palin says Letterman owes women an apology

Friday, 2009 June 12 - 12:17 pm

In case you hadn't heard the furor about David Letterman and Sarah Palin, the gist of it is that Letterman made a joke about stripper-chasing baseball player Alex Rodriguez having sex with Palin's daughter. The reference was clearly about Bristol, Palin's teenage daughter who was infamously pregnant during last year's elections. But Palin took the reference to be about her fourteen-year-old daughter Willow, who was traveling with her at the time.

So, Sarah Palin was outraged. OUTRAGED! And now she's demanding that Letterman apologize to all women.

Ms. Palin: David Letterman is a comedian who makes cheap jokes at the expense of public figures. You are a public figure, and you seemed to have no qualms about prominently featuring your visibly-pregnant daughter Bristol during your campaign. So Letterman has every right to ridicule you both. Was the joke in poor taste? Perhaps, as are many jokes that are made in late night TV. Does Letterman need to apologize to all women for this? No.

The person who needs to apologize to all women, Ms. Palin, is you. You've spent your life advancing yourself on your looks and your folksy charm instead of intelligence and actual qualifications, and that's precisely the opposite of what feminism is about. You are not the standard bearer for women's rights. The only women you seem to defend are yourself and those in your own family. Did you defend Hillary Clinton when she felt attacked by the media? No. Did you defend rape victims in Wasilla when you required them to purchase their own rape kits? No.

No, you're just using any opportunity you can to stay in the media spotlight during the long run-up to the 2012 elections. If you don't think that's utterly transparent to everyone in the country, then you're even dumber than you look.

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Posted by Ken in: politics, television

Apple WWDC Announcements

Monday, 2009 June 8 - 8:35 pm

A few Apple goings-on today from the World Wide Developer Conference, for those who haven't been following:

iPhone 3GS. Apple announced slightly improved iPhone, with a faster processor, faster 3G networking, more storage, longer battery life, an improved 3 megapixel camera with autofocus, video recording, and a compass. It comes at the same price points as the previous iPhone, $199 and $299 (for 16GB and 32GB) with a two-year AT&T contract. Apple is also selling the previous-generation iPhone 3G for $99, which might bring in a lot of entry-level buyers.

Macbook Pro. Two announcements here: an upgraded 15" MBP with an improved screen, twice the RAM (4GB standard), and a faster CPU. The battery is now integrated and non-replaceable, but it's a lithium-polymer long-lasting battery like in the 17" model. An SD card slot replaces the ExpressCard slot; Apple says that very few users made use of the ExpressCard slot except to add a media card reader. There's also now an entry-level model at $1699, with only the Nvidia GeForce 9400M instead of the dual-GPU option in the higher-end models.

The 13" Aluminum Macbook is now a 13" MacBook Pro; it gets the Firewire port back (now FW800) and gains an SD card slot also. Now only the white Macbook is called a "Macbook". It was recently speed-bumped also.

Macbook Air. The main news is that it's now cheaper; it starts at $1499.

The rest of the WWDC keynote speech was devoted to descriptions about iPhone OS 3.0 and the upcoming Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" update. One tidbit: the Snow Leopard update will be just $29; Apple (rightly) figures that customers won't shell out a full $129 for a bunch of largely-invisible under-the-hood improvements. (Cough Windows 7 cough).

iPhone OS 3.0 will support MMS and tethering (finally), but AT&T won't support either until later this summer. There's no word on pricing plans for tethering, but judging from AT&T's tethering plans for other phones, it'll be pricey.

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Posted by Ken in: techwatch

Sotomayor, Eh?

Tuesday, 2009 May 26 - 11:16 am

In perhaps the least surprising SCOTUS news of the year, President Obama has nominated Sonia Sotomayor to be replace David Souter on the Supreme Court. And while I'm not going to go all Republican and suggest that Obama chose Sotomayor merely because of her sex and her race, those factors had to play some role in the decision-making process. But still: it's a solid selection. She's clearly qualified for the position. If she doesn't breeze through the nomination process, I'll be shocked.

Also: it's fun to say "Sotomay-ORRR" with a pretend Spanish accent.

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Posted by Ken in: politics

Sailing Takes Me Away

Saturday, 2009 May 23 - 8:24 pm

So today was the Raleigh Skirt Chaser 5K race. I have not run in an actual race since, um, Christopher Cross was in the Billboard top 40. Yeah, I was like ten years old.

Also, until two days ago, I haven't even attempted to run 5 kilometers in years. I used to run two miles regularly, and four miles occasionally... but my running has suffered as of late. (By "suffered", I mean "I've run from the couch to the toilet, but not much more.") But I went ahead and signed up for the Skirt Chaser race at my friend Anna's behest, not really believing I could finish the race at all, much less do any better than a humiliating last-place.

But you know what? I finished. And while I didn't come close to catching the ridiculous Kenyan woman who finished in under 16 minutes, I managed a respectable 32:30 (approximately; the official results haven't been posted yet). So, yay me... maybe I'm not quite as hopelessly old and marshmallow-y as I'd feared.

A few photos will be up on Facebook in a day or two.

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Posted by Ken in: life

American Idol Finale: The Gokey Factor

Wednesday, 2009 May 20 - 10:16 pm

Well, I can't say I'm totally surprised by the result of Idol tonight... no doubt, Gokey fans voted in droves for Kris. It's more of an anti-Adam vote than a pro-Kris vote. Still, I have to give credit to Kris; I didn't even think he'd make the top ten, and he flew under the radar the whole way and ended up winning. Good for him.

I still think Allison has the biggest commercial potential.

Contestants aside, I was blown away by the geezer star lineup for the finale episode. Kiss, Queen, and Santana on the same stage? Lionel Ritchie and Rod Stewart, still alive? Cyndi Lauper and Queen Latifa? Wow.

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Posted by Ken in: television

American Idol 2009 Week 11: Top 2

Tuesday, 2009 May 19 - 10:37 pm

Danny went home last week. It's Kris and Adam, in perhaps the most lopsided matchup in Idol history. If Kris wins this, it'll be a huge upset.

Read more...

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Posted by Ken in: television

UR CAPTCHA SUCKS

Saturday, 2009 May 16 - 10:19 am

Lately we've been getting robocalls at 8:00 in the morning, from someone trying to tell us that we need to update our account information for "the Internet", because apparently the we are behind on our payments.

Also, my web site has been seeing more and more comment spam.

Here's the thing: I'm supposed to have mechanisms to stop both of these things from happening, but they're not working right.

Read more...

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Posted by Ken in: site-business, techwatch

Hockey Good

Thursday, 2009 May 14 - 10:28 pm

Wings win. Canes win. Hockey good. That is all.

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Posted by Ken in: sports

American Idol 2009 Week 10: Top 3

Tuesday, 2009 May 12 - 8:23 pm

Allison went home last week, boo. Also, Simon Cowell publicly predicted that Adam would win it all. This week, with three guys left: the judges pick one song, the contestants pick one.

Read more...

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Posted by Ken in: television

Star Trek

Tuesday, 2009 May 12 - 8:57 am

Star Trek 11? Star Trek Zero? Whatever it's called, this movie is clearly the start of a new franchise, with a hot young cast and a clean slate for future story lines.

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Posted by Ken in: movies, reviews

Today's Headlines

Monday, 2009 May 11 - 9:39 am

The new "Star Trek" movie grossed $76.5 million on its opening weekend, thanks to positive early reviews. I'll have my own review posted later today.

That Georgia professor whom I thought was so smart? Turns out he had evaded police by killing himself. Perhaps not so smart after all.

Roxana Saberi, the U.S. reporter who had been jailed in Iran on charges of espionage, has reportedly been released. Most believe it was due to relentless diplomatic pressure from the U.S. and other countries. But I think that secretly, the U.S. government loved having her young pretty face be the symbol of the struggle against Iranian fascism.

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Posted by Ken in: commentary

Today's Headlines

Friday, 2009 May 8 - 8:36 am

Former Illinois police sergeant Drew Peterson has been indicted on a murder charge in the death of his third wife. Wasn't he Sloan's dad in Ferris Bueller? Also: what's the deal with guys named Peterson killing their wives? There was Scott Peterson, Michael Peterson, and now Drew Peterson. Note to women: don't marry men named Peterson.

Senate Republicans are attacking Obama's health care plan... before they even know what it is. Really? I guess the idea is "any change to our health care system would be bad". God forbid we should have the same "socialist" health care they have in Europe (i.e., affordable and convenient). Better to keep our good old American system with its spiraling costs and profit-motivated insurance providers. Note to Republicans: when you talk about reducing the size of the federal government, please keep in mind that the government spends about 750 billion dollars a year on health care. Doesn't that seem like a good reason to reform our system?

Top flu expert warns of a swine flu-bird flu mix. Note to pigs: stop having sex with chickens.

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Posted by Ken in: commentary, politics

American Idol 2009 Week 9: Top 4

Tuesday, 2009 May 5 - 8:06 pm

Matt finally went home last week. This week: rock songs... as solos and as duets... with Slash as a mentor. Ooookay.

Read more...

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Posted by Ken in: television

Today's Headlines

Monday, 2009 May 4 - 9:19 am

Some U.S. senators have suggested that Obama's pick to succeed David Souter on the Supreme Court should perhaps come from somewhere other than the federal appellate courts. Mr. Obama: I agree. Pick me.

Notre Dame's decision to have Obama speak at their commencement has infuriated some Catholics. I suppose a war-mongering torture-supporting President would have been OK, though. Why are people so insistent on making abortion the single defining issue in politics?

I'm fascinated by the story of the professor who allegedly killed his wife and two other people. John Bankhead of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation states: "He's not the typical type of fugitive police have to deal with." In other words: most criminals are dumb; this guy isn't. Hollywood usually portrays criminals as idiots. In the Hollywood version of this story, the professor would be caught after attempting to sneak back into town to cut out the heart from his wife's body or something. No such luck for police this time.

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Posted by Ken in: commentary, politics

Today's Headlines

Wednesday, 2009 April 29 - 9:11 am

Fox News commentator Sean Hannity said he'd volunteer to be waterboarded for charity. Now MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann has
challenged him to go through with it. My hunch says Hannity chickens out.

The San Antonio Spurs are out of the NBA playoffs. Normally I couldn't care less* about non-Detroit teams in the NBA, but if there are two teams that make me happy when they lose, it's the Spurs and the Lakers.

Egypt is slaughtering 300,000 pigs over swine flu fears, despite the fact that no cases have appeared in Egypt yet. Next: Egypt to kill all Spaniards due to fears of Spanish flu.

*And yes, the correct phrase is "I couldn't care less", not "I could care less"... pet peeve grrr.

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Posted by Ken in: commentary, sports

American Idol 2009 Week 8: Top 5

Tuesday, 2009 April 28 - 9:21 pm

Lil and Anoop went home last week. Matt, unfortunately, survived. Lil blames the judges for biasing America against her. Surrrrre.

This week: Rat Pack standards.

Read more...

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Posted by Ken in: television

GOOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLL!

Tuesday, 2009 April 28 - 9:07 pm

1:20 in the 3rd, Hurricanes tie Game 7 against the Devils.

0:31 in the 3rd: Hurricanes go up 4-3. Amazing.

And it's over... Hurricanes advance. That was such an incredible finish; my mind is officially blown. Wow.

Permalink 1 Comment

Posted by Ken in: sports

In the News

Tuesday, 2009 April 28 - 1:06 pm

Sometimes I feel guilty about not posting more often. It's not just that my blog is being neglected (and that recent entries are dominated by American Idol posts), but also that I often see interesting stories in the news that seem like they'd be worth a quick comment.

On the other hand, sometimes I don't really have much to say about those stories, so I'm not sure if anyone would care for my one-line analysis. Eh. It's my blog, I guess, so whatevah, I do what I want.

So anyway, read on for a couple of newsworthy tidbits.

Read more...

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Posted by Ken in: commentary, politics, techwatch

American Idol 2009 Week 7: Top 7 Again

Tuesday, 2009 April 21 - 7:59 pm

Matt should have gone home last week, but the judges saved him... what a waste. This week: disco week, and two people will go home tomorrow.

Read more...

Permalink 3 Comment

Posted by Ken in: television

Economic Downturn

Saturday, 2009 April 18 - 12:34 pm

So, in the last twelve months, we've lost 15% of our net worth, due to the economic downturn. I'm not gonna say how many dollars that is, but let's just say, it's more than a fistful. This is the first annual decline in my overall net worth since I graduated from college. I mean, 2001 was bad, but I've never seen anything this bad.

I read stories about the downturn, and I hear about friends losing their jobs. But, ironically, it never really felt personal to me until I ran the numbers.

Still, I'm optimistic that if I carefully start putting money back in the stock market, I'll be able to recover most of those losses within a year or two. Maybe this time I'll actually catch the next wave at the right time. Green tech, perhaps?

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Posted by Ken in: commentary, life

American Idol 2009 Week 6: Top 7

Tuesday, 2009 April 14 - 8:07 pm

Scott finally went home last week. This week: songs from movies... with Quentin Tarantino as the mentor. Awesome. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness.

Read more...

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Posted by Ken in: television

Worst Business Decision Ever

Tuesday, 2009 April 14 - 4:54 pm

In Beaumont, Texas, Time Warner Cable has been experimenting with bandwidth caps on its high-speed internet service. They're trying a tiered pricing model where light users get 5 GB per month, and heavy users get 40 GB per month. Exceed the limit, you pay $1 per GB. The fee is capped at $150 total per month, so that will be the new price of unlimited internet access... a three-fold increase over their current price.

Now, they want to expand the trial to more cities, and eventually, they want to roll this out nationwide.

This is a terrible, terrible idea. I hope web site operators, many of whom have founded their business models on users having unlimited internet access, rail against this idea. I hope consumers, who probably don't even realize how much bandwidth they're consuming, refuse to have the internet doled out to them in metered parcels.

Here's the thing: cable modem providers have a near monopoly on Internet services in some areas. There are places where DSL currently doesn't reach, or only reaches with diminished performance (like my house). Plus, current users who use an rr.com email address have a barrier to switching providers, much like cell phone users used to have trouble switching carriers (before the government made it mandatory that phone numbers be made portable for free). So Time Warner's plan is little more than a plan to wring extra money out of their top customers. They'll get to advertise that they have the highest broadband speeds ("Turbo Boost! 10 megabits per second!") but they'll conveniently omit the fact that at that speed, you can exceed your monthly download quota in just half a day.

I won't stand for it. If this comes to the Raleigh area, I'm done with Time Warner. I'll find some other way. Maybe DSL will have improved here by then, or Verizon FIOS will be available here. Maybe there'll be some sort of high-speed fixed wireless access I can get. But listen to me, Time Warner weasels: you're taxing my patience with your cable rates as it is. If you add internet metering to your money-grubbing methods, you've lost me as a customer. I've already created a new domain name to move my remaining collection of rr.com email addresses. I'm tempted to offer free email accounts to any users who drop your service in response to this move.

When will corporations learn? It doesn't pay to piss off your best customers.

Permalink 1 Comment

Posted by Ken in: commentary, techwatch

Next, She'll Want Us to Bleach Our Hair

Friday, 2009 April 10 - 11:35 am

Texas state legislator Betty Brown suggested that Asian-Americans change their names so that state poll workers would have an easier time dealing with their identification.

To Betty: the name I will choose is "Up Yours". Is that American enough for ya?

Permalink 1 Comment

Posted by Ken in: commentary

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