Ok so I'm not an apple person. I like some of their functional and aesthetic aspects, but you won't see me lining up to buy the new iPhone 4.0.1.2.1 (now with more square edges!). I don't understand the Apple people who seem to not care that they have, rather literally, given Steve Jobs and co. carte blanche to charge any price they please on their products. Why? Because people keep buying the products at any price!
Normally I say live and let live, but if you don't think Apple are abusing your consumer brand loyalty, then the MacBook Air should (hopefully) force you to see the light. Full details can be found at CNN but here's the short version. The new MacBook will cost users a whopping $999 (at its cheapest and smallest). Your return on investment? A tiny laptop that has a massive (!).....64 gigabytes of space! How about a DVD reader? Nope! Will millions line up to buy it on opening day (despite alreasy owning superior, cheaper machines)? Absolutely! Meanwhile the lads at Apple are laughing at the fact that they pulled the same trick on consumers yet again.
Apple Exec: "What will we charge next Steve?"
Steve Jobs: "Who cares, people will buy it".
Apple Exec: "Won't they get wisen up to this trick?"
Steve Jobs: "Seemingly not"
Now I understand the supposed technological justifications for the price. Great battery life, weight, and flash storage. Downloading updates via the Web makes sense, but not being able to watch basic DVDs? And only 64 GB of space? This is criminal.
Though I'm sure many would (will) disagree with me, at the end of the day, if you want to spend $1000 of you hard earned (?) money, go ahead.
Would love to hear some views on this.
Think about it.
Manuel
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Can't type on a touch screen? Me neither...
Ok so I can, but I don't like it. I like to actually feel the keys I'm typing on. What's more is I just find it plain annoying. Seems like I'm not the only one.
The folks over at Disney Research are coming up with something to take care of this problem. The Tesla Touch Screen seems to be paving the way for a whole new type of touch screen interface. Anyways, just though I'd share in case anyone agrees with me about how annoying it is to use touch keypads.
Manuel
P.S. Anyone else find it comical that anything vaguely associated with electricity has the name Tesla thrown in? I wonder what ole Nikola would think!
The folks over at Disney Research are coming up with something to take care of this problem. The Tesla Touch Screen seems to be paving the way for a whole new type of touch screen interface. Anyways, just though I'd share in case anyone agrees with me about how annoying it is to use touch keypads.
Manuel
P.S. Anyone else find it comical that anything vaguely associated with electricity has the name Tesla thrown in? I wonder what ole Nikola would think!
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Life surrounds us
It's been too long since I've posted anything here. For that I feel annoyed at myself, and yet it is thus all the more rewarding to be posting again.
To begin my blog anew, a quote I feel encourages us to embrace that which we hold dear.
- Manuel
To begin my blog anew, a quote I feel encourages us to embrace that which we hold dear.
- Manuel
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Socio-Cultural Issues: Democratization in the Middle East
The big players in Western politics commonly espouse the values of spreading democracy in the Middle East. After all, why wouldn't they? Democracy represents the views of the majority and as such is fairest....right? Let's assume that for this post, this makes perfect sense (at least in theory). If it makes sense, then doesn't it also stand to reason that the peoples of the Middle Eastern region would demand and fight for democracy? It's a hot topic in politics and as such I want to shed some light on some of the factors stunting the spread of democracy in certain parts of the globe. Namely: geo-political interests and internal economics.
Politics: Former US president George W. (dub-ya) Bush began "his second term...with a promise to the people of the United States and the world -- vowing to promote democracy both at home and abroad." (CNN). Hmm....that didn't really pan out. And whilst it is very fun to hop on the anti-Bush bandwagon, it's only fair to point out that he was not the only Western leader to go on about the spread of democracy. So what's the problem? Why can the most powerful and wealthy nations in the world not succeed in a task that appeals to 'common sense'? Hmm....either democracy is a paradigm that simply cannot function in a Middle Eastern setting (as per Huntington's 'Clash of Civilizations') or....could the spread of democracy be a false promise? Scholars like Norton (in Fawcett) argue that Western countries do not genuinely wish to promote democracy due to the possible instability and subsequent conflict this could create. In simple terms our leaders reckon that given proper democracy countries in the Middle East would elect extremists into power which of course is against Western goals; both in the sense that this could cause international conflict and simultaneously jeopardize long-standing economic assets (eg cutting off oil supplies like in 1973). This brings me to the next point of economics.
Economics: There are a few things to consider here, and whilst international interests play a large role I'm just going to focus on the existing internal barriers to effective democratization. It's no secret that in many regions women are subverted in society. Often they are not allowed to work. Ergo, countries which find themselves in these situations essentially cut their work force in half. The lack of a large work force can concordantly mean that it is impossible for a strong middle class to arise in society. The issue with this is that wealthy middle classes are the only economically powerful enough and numerically large enough capable of standing up to the government by means vis-a-vis taxation. The old edict goes 'no taxation without representation'. Well unfortunately it works both ways. In most Middle Eastern countries there is no taxation. Instead we find rentier states whereby the country pays its citizens an amount of money which comes from oil revenues (for a more detailed definition see SEMP). Thus 'no representation without taxation' comes into play and the masses find themselves with no voice in governments who feel they owe their people next to nothing. Thus the populace have no facilitated means of standing up for what they believe in (whether it is democracy or something else - but this is not the point here) and demanding it.
They are but a few theories. Knock 'em, support 'em or add a different view. As always, food for thought.
Manuel
Politics: Former US president George W. (dub-ya) Bush began "his second term...with a promise to the people of the United States and the world -- vowing to promote democracy both at home and abroad." (CNN). Hmm....that didn't really pan out. And whilst it is very fun to hop on the anti-Bush bandwagon, it's only fair to point out that he was not the only Western leader to go on about the spread of democracy. So what's the problem? Why can the most powerful and wealthy nations in the world not succeed in a task that appeals to 'common sense'? Hmm....either democracy is a paradigm that simply cannot function in a Middle Eastern setting (as per Huntington's 'Clash of Civilizations') or....could the spread of democracy be a false promise? Scholars like Norton (in Fawcett) argue that Western countries do not genuinely wish to promote democracy due to the possible instability and subsequent conflict this could create. In simple terms our leaders reckon that given proper democracy countries in the Middle East would elect extremists into power which of course is against Western goals; both in the sense that this could cause international conflict and simultaneously jeopardize long-standing economic assets (eg cutting off oil supplies like in 1973). This brings me to the next point of economics.
Economics: There are a few things to consider here, and whilst international interests play a large role I'm just going to focus on the existing internal barriers to effective democratization. It's no secret that in many regions women are subverted in society. Often they are not allowed to work. Ergo, countries which find themselves in these situations essentially cut their work force in half. The lack of a large work force can concordantly mean that it is impossible for a strong middle class to arise in society. The issue with this is that wealthy middle classes are the only economically powerful enough and numerically large enough capable of standing up to the government by means vis-a-vis taxation. The old edict goes 'no taxation without representation'. Well unfortunately it works both ways. In most Middle Eastern countries there is no taxation. Instead we find rentier states whereby the country pays its citizens an amount of money which comes from oil revenues (for a more detailed definition see SEMP). Thus 'no representation without taxation' comes into play and the masses find themselves with no voice in governments who feel they owe their people next to nothing. Thus the populace have no facilitated means of standing up for what they believe in (whether it is democracy or something else - but this is not the point here) and demanding it.
They are but a few theories. Knock 'em, support 'em or add a different view. As always, food for thought.
Manuel
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
