Well hello! Glad you've dropped by. Feel free to have a good read, but you should know that I'm no longer writing on this blog. The new blog is over here: Pursuit of Redemption.
Carriers in Europe are mandated to accept any phone compatible with their network protocol. It makes selecting your wireless service and phone much more intuitive. Phone XYZ is the coolest with the features you want? Awesome… get it. And the wireless provider ABC has the mix of features you want in a wireless plan without extra “features” you wouldn’t want to pay for? Great! There you go!
Obviously I’m simplifying things, but it just makes more sense. Because when the wireless providers have a lock on the devices they allow on their network, they subsidize them. And they lock features out. And then they add those same features back in a new and improved clunky, proprietary format for the low, low monthly price of…!
Prime example: lately I’ve been looking at getting a new phone. It’s about that time, and now that I’m no longer in school, my schedule is far less than routine. Essentially, I just need a phone with a calendar. But I already keep my entire schedule in iCal on my Macbook Pro. So I want my phone to sync the calendar and address book (it doesn’t have to sync anything else as far as I’m concerned). Ask a Verizon wireless sales associate this, and they’ll readily reply that yes, their phones can do that. But not all. Check out this list of phones on Apple’s website to see which ones are denoted with (5) to indicate…
Why just Verizon’s version? Could that be because they lock their phones down beyond what any other carrier attempts?
So instead of working towards letting us use the awesome technological features that Motorola and LG have heavily advertised (Bluetooth isn’t only for hands-free headsets, Verizon), the U.S. wireless providers treat customers with contempt, acting like watching television on a 1.5-inch by 1.5-inch screen is what really gets my wireless heart a-thumpin’.
If you’ve ever even seen an episode of Law and Order, you know that a good lawyer never asks a question to which he doesn’t know the answer. But for his part in the Watergate proceedings, Thompson’s being dragged through the mud by some muckraking journalist is trying to create a name for herself:
What rarely is mentioned is that Thompson knew the answer to the question before he asked it. Investigators for the committee had gotten the information out of Butterfield during hours of behind-the-scenes questioning three days earlier, on July 13.
Okay… this is somehow wrong? Seems like solid investigative work to me.
A little further on in the article:
“When the prosecutor discovers the smoking the gun, he’s going to be shocked to find that the deputy prosecutor called the defendant and said, ‘You’d better get rid of that gun,’” Armstrong said in an interview.
Or, you could look at it this way: in every legal case, both sides must provide the other with notice of evidence or witnesses they plan to introduce during trial to give the other side an opportunity to review it. So apparently, it’s not that outlandish a thing to let the defense know about the smoking gun. Thompson even disclosed the whole part about tipping the White House off in his 1975 book. He apparently wasn’t trying to hide anything.
“Fred (Thompson) and Baker carried water for the White House, but I have to give them credit “” they were watching out for their interests, too,” Kutler said. “They weren’t going to mindlessly go down the tubes for this guy.”
So essentially, Joan Lowy from the AP, your article is just full of weak sauce, trying to stir up a scandal where one doesn’t exist. Thompson and Baker were investigative counsel during the Watergate scandal representing the GOP. Do you really expect counsel for a party in power to not at least take an interest in their own affairs? They did nothing wrong and ultimately did not let the Nixon White House off the hook, regardless of what Nixon and his chief of staff thought they might be able to get away with through Thompson. Calm down.
I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I just threw some stuff in a crock pot tonight to make a queso for a party, and it turned out pretty… delicious. It’s got a nice, creamy start to it, kind of a medium weight, and a surprising kick of heat that shows up several moments after the queso’s already down the hatch. Here’s the recipe for (yes, that’s the name of it) A Delicious Queso:
24 oz block of Monterey Jack, cubed
16 oz block of Pepper Jack, cubed
1- 10 oz can Rotel Original
1- 10.5 oz can Hormel Chili (No Beans)
Basically, about an hour before you want to serve it, throw it all in the Crock Pot with a lid and set it on high heat. Don’t drain the Rotel, put it all in. Make sure you stir it every few minutes, otherwise the outer edges will start to get hard (and might even burn) and the center won’t melt completely. And that’s just disgusting.
So apparently a new law went into effect in Tennessee today. Establishments selling closed containers of beer (such as grocery stores and convenience markets) not only have to card everyone who purchases beer, but their driver’s license number is also entered into a statewide database. (Burly first tipped me off to this, and then here’s more info from a blog at the Knoxville News-Sentinel).
I understand carding, and I’m completely ok with it. I even understand company policy to overshoot the minimum and card anyone who appears to be under, say, 40. Before today, clerks would have to key in my birth date for beer (and indeed one did yesterday). That’s fine. Understandable; I’m sure some of those folks don’t have good math skills, so let the computer do it for them.
The state’s reasoning is that they want to put the kibosh on underage drinking. If they leave it up to a clerk’s discretion, there would be some older looking kids who would slip through the cracks. Alright, so force everyone to have their birth date keyed in. Problem solved.
There is no. need. for. this. I’m not sure where they’re going with this, but the more records there are of where I am and what I’m buying, the less I like it. This is why I’d rather purchase with cash instead of a traceable credit or debit card. I’m also not a fan of all the grocery stores holding their prices hostage and releasing them only if I get a Plus or VIP card, making me think I’m “saving” money when they’re really just keeping records of what I buy. I do not like it, I do not like it at all.
