Providing Data for a world that makes decisions based on beer can labels
Reimagined and Revamped. Fighting the spread of nonsense often feels like a Sisyphean task. However, the joy is in making the information available, not the hope of conversion.
As I have been blogging sporadically over the last two years I have come to really love reading people's thoughts on three main subjects. The first two are rather obvious for me, the first is skeptical thinking on all matters. For this there are a variety of interesting blogs such as Skeptico, infophilia, and moonflake . These blogs, along with many others I have not mentioned (just see the blog rolls at each of these, in particular Skeptico's as he has various critical thinking blogs categorized), are really great for examining a variety of subjects and they are less personal than other blogs I like to read like Berlzebub's.
My blog, while I certainly throw in a lot of personal stuff, is mostly about using actual raw data, rather than other people conclusions to get at a result. This is how I attack the Ancient Chinese Medicine myth, the education levels and political alignment of various states, and the validity of statements from companies that make technical products, like the Medis nonsense.
The New Thing I have also started to participate in another endeavor. While I am quite comfortable in my atheism, and fully endorse all the work done by Dawkins, Harris, Hitchen's and PZ and many others, I am not confident that it is helping to unify our country. I know that they are right, and I do agree that if there was widespread realization of the nonsense of religion and the harm it actually provides our countries, we would be better off. However, in my lifetime, or even in my daughters lifetime, I doubt we will see our various countries growing out of their religions.
So I am offering my thoughts and insights to a new venue. Common Ground contains essays from people with various backgrounds, religious or otherwise. Each week will bring a new topic for essays. These are not blog entries with links and supporting data and so forth, but simply essays from peoples point of view.
I hope you will join me over there. Read posts from everyone, and perhaps even write your own. I think that only by understand where 'the other side' is coming from, and remembering that their entire life experiences have led them there, can we find places where we all can agree. I suspect there are far more places where we can all agree than we think.
Toshiba has a new battery coming out next year. And you can already see all the hyperbole like form their data sheet
"a breakthrough rechargeable battery"
or from Engadget
"How does this sound: a battery capable of recharging to 90% in under 5 minutes while remaining useful (i.e., 5,000+ recharges) for 10 years or more? Sounds like the stuff of jetpacks and food replicators right?" [my bold]
Well lets get the story straight for a second. When a company says "Better" your first question should be "than what?". There is no doubt that this battery technology has some really great properties, however does it solve the problems associated with the normal consumer in terms of battery life? Lets see.
The major benefit that they are touting is the ability to charge quickly. Very quickly. The graph they are showing in the data sheet makes the following comparison: The SCiB battery can charge 6-24 times faster than other Li+ batteries.
There are two major applications that would love to see this benefit, handheld devices and electric cars. The technology, according to their data sheet says it can charge at 50 amps. They do not relate this statistic to the size of the battery, so I think it is suspect, but lets just take it at face value.
For handheld devices you will not be able to get the full benefit of this feature because most homes do not have circuits with 50 amp breakers on it (there are exceptions, but in general, trying to get 50 amps through a normal outlet will make the circuit breaker go). There are other reasons why this is not a good technology for handheld, but we will get to that later. The idea that you may go to an airport and plug in for 5 minutes to charge your laptop, doesn't seem likely.
For electric cars, that have large batteries, this is truly a boon. The possibility of having electric-only service stations are possible. Installing a 50 amp circuit in your garage is completely viable, and you may already be wired that way since many people have big tools like air compressors, saws and so forth in there. But alas, while they have solved one issue, other features of have been made worse. Take a look at the chart to the right. The energy density of the new SCiB is far worse than current Li+ technology for handhelds. So while this may not be so much of an issue for weight and space insensitive applications, like cars, its pretty much a death knell for handheld and portable applications.
Lets examine a hypothetical device that uses this technology as a portable power supply like other ones that are currently available. From teh SCiB data sheet, we see that a single battery has the following specs
2.4V 4.2 Ah 76.6 cubic centimeters 150 grams
This leads to volumetric energy density of 130 Wh/l (without any sort of enclosure) and 67 Wh/Kg. Just to take a reality check, lets compare to a product that we already know is bunk, the Medis 24/7. It has an energy density of 85 Wh/L and 130 Wh/Kg. So the SCiB is still better volumetrically (important for integration into handheld devices) but the Medis power pack, is better in a weight basis.
Of course using normal Li+ beats both by factor 2x. Regardless, other features that help this new technology is the low life cycle degradation, one of the key deficiencies of traditional Li+ batteries.
All in all, this new technology is not a boon to consumer electronics and hand held or computer applications, but looks quite good as a energy source for cars. To the credit of Toshiba, they acknowledge this and make no claims about handhelds:
In addition to applications that include battery-powered bicycles, motorcycles, automated guided vehicles, electric forklift trucks and construction machinery, which already use rechargeable batteries, the SCiB is also a promising candidate for emergency power sources, electric power regeneration in wind power systems and stabilization of electric power supply. Application in hybrid cars is also planned, with the intent of extending application to electric cars in the future, after advancing development of a high-performance SCiB cell.
And I fully agree with this assessment. Apparently its just the media and bloggers that are getting ga ga over it for handhelds.
Posted Wednesday, December 05, 2007 by
Techskeptic
This is the season of giving, as they say. There are a lot of religions who use this time of year for reflection, charity and general goodwill. I dont see why atheists can't also use this time of year to be benevolent. Any time of year is good of course, but personally I find winter solstice to be one of the most uplifting days of the year, so why not?
I've been asked often why there aren't any atheist charities. Of course, as usual, people are just presuming or parroting things they heard. Of course there are atheist charities. And like in my videos post, I am considering charities that do not promote a specific religion to be an atheist charity.
I found most of these at the Internet Infidels discussion board (and copied descriptive text from there, apologies if that was a problem). But I thought a nice list would be better, plus I added a few more. There are useful sites like CharityNavigator to help you sort through all the charities out there. If there are comments proposing ones that I missed (and surely there are plenty), I will add them to this list, if they are highly rated (not that all of these are). So here goes:
UPDATE 2009: I apologize for not refreshing this list. No time this year. Please feel free to leave some more a-theist charities for me to include in future versions in the comments.Please read the comments for more and add your own! I know there are more good secular charities out there that I have missed. I also recommend donating so some of the excellent critical thinking podcasts out there.
Secular Charities and Aid groups:
DonorsChoose.org a simple way to provide students in need with resources that our public schools often lack.
Kiva.org lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world.
American Red Cross The American Red Cross, a humanitarian organization led by volunteers, guided by its Congressional Charter and the Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross Movement, will provide relief to victims of disasters and help people prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies. The USA's premier emergency response organization, over 91% of Red Cross spending is on charitable services.
American Civil Liberties Union The mission of the ACLU is to preserve all of constitutional protections and guarantees relating to First Amendment rights, including the freedom to practice religion and the freedom not to have religion rammed down our throats, equal protection, due process, and right to privacy.
United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF mobilizes political will and material resources to help countries, particularly developing countries, ensure a "first call for children" and to build their capacity to form appropriate policies and deliver services for children and their families. UNICEF provides emergency and disaster relief.
Doctors without Borders Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international independent medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural and man-made disasters, and exclusion from health care in nearly 70 countries.
Amnesty International AI’s vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards. In pursuit of this vision, AI’s mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all human rights.
Oxfam International Oxfam International is a confederation of 12 organizations working together with over 3,000 partners in more than 100 countries to find lasting solutions to poverty, suffering and injustice. The Oxfams operate in over 100 countries worldwide working with local partners to alleviate poverty and injustice.
The Nature Conservancy The Nature Conservancy is a leading international, nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the diversity of life on Earth. An environmental group that protects natural habitats and the wildlife within them. Focuses on "science-based" initiatives.
Population Connection Population Connection is the national grassroots population organization that educates young people and advocates progressive action to stabilize world population at a level that can be sustained by Earth's resources. Works against faith-based policies that are supported by the Religious Right.
DefCon: Campaign to Defend the Constitution DefCon is an online grassroots movement combating the growing power of the religious right. It includes a blog on religious freedom issues, action alerts, and in-depth articles on scientific, religious, and legal issues of the day.
The SEED foundation National nonprofit that establishes urban public boarding schools to prepare students from underserved communities for success in college.
Project Peanut Butter Project Peanut Butter is a therapeutic feeding program for malnourished children in Malawi and Sierra Leone, on the continent of Africa. It was founded by Professor Mark Manary, M.D., a pediatrician at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and a professor of pediatric medicine at Washington University School of Medicine.
Electronic Frontiers Foundation When our freedoms in the networked world come under attack, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the first line of defense. Blending the expertise of lawyers, policy analysts, activists, and technologists, EFF achieves significant victories on behalf of consumers and the general public. EFF fights for freedom primarily in the courts, bringing and defending lawsuits even when that means taking on the US government or large corporations.
Mercy corps Mercy Corps exists to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities.
Seva Our programs serve people who have been economically, politically, or otherwise marginalized. We change our program approach to relate to their culture and circumstances, reaching out in very different ways, for example, to nomads in Tibet, women in Tanzania, or indigenous Mayans in Guatemala. Our aim is to build a bridge of compassion between our donors and the people we serve — people around the world who have the fewest resources.
International Peace Institute The International Peace Institute (IPI) formerly International Peace Academy is an independent, international institution dedicated to promoting the prevention and settlement of armed conflict between and within states through policy research and development.
Issue-Specific Secularist Organizations
Anti-Discrimination The ADSN Project. The Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia's Anti-Discrimination support network (ADSN) is collecting narratives highlighting instances of bigotry against the nontheist community.
Southern Poverty Law Center SPLC is internationally known for its tolerance education programs, its legal victories against white supremacists and its tracking of hate groups.
The Alternatives to Marriage Project The Alternatives to Marriage Project (AtMP) advocates for equality and fairness for unmarried people, including people who are single, choose not to marry, cannot marry, or live together before marriage.
Pro-choice organizations Planned Parenthood Federation of America Provides reproductive health care services, advocates for women's reproductive rights, and offers educational services for women.
NARAL Pro-choice America Focuses mostly on the social and legal activism for women's abortion rights.
Womens Health Organizations EngenderHealth an international nonprofit organization that has been working for 60 years to make reproductive health services safe, available, and sustainable for women and men worldwide.
Ipas an international organization that works around the world to increase women's ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights, and to reduce abortion-related deaths and injuries.
Teen Pregnancy Reduction National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy Sadly this charity is rated with only 2 stars due to low efficiency. However their goal is highly respectable and needed, to prevent teen pregnancy and unplanned pregnancy among single, young adults.
HIV/AIDS Treatment Action Campaign campaign for treatment for people with HIV and to reduce new HIV infections. Our efforts have resulted in many life-saving interventions, including the implementation of country-wide mother-to-child transmission prevention and antiretroviral treatment programes.
Gay rights Lambda A national non-profit gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender (GLBT) agency dedicated to reducing homophobia, inequality, hate crimes, and discrimination by encouraging self-acceptance, cooperation, and non-violence.
Lambda Legal The legal arm of the Lambda organization that protects GLBT civil rights through impact litigation, education and public policy work.
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Dedicated to promoting and ensuring fair, accurate and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
Human Rights Campaign Large organization working for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equal rights.
Pledge of Allegiance Restore the Pledge Support Michael Newdow in his quest to remove the phrase "under God" from the official Pledge of Allegiance, coercively recited by millions of schoolchildren every day.
Evolution/Creationism in the science classroom National Center for Science Education Great resource with current news and resources (including the famous "Project Steve" list!) on defending evolution and science against pseudoscience advocates.
Texas Freedom Network The Texas Freedom Network advances a mainstream agenda of religious freedom and individual liberties to counter the religious right
Boy Scouts of America discrimination against atheists, gays Scouting For All Composed of mostly former Boy Scouts, it is working to influence the BSA to include all participating youth members and leaders regardless of religious beliefs or sexual orientation.
Children in Poor countries PlanUSA an organization committed to helping children, their families and communities in 49 developing countries around the world.
Internet tools Wikipedia a multilingual, Web-based, free-contentencyclopedia project. The name "Wikipedia" is a portmanteau (a combination of portions of two words and their meanings) of the words wiki (a type of collaborative Web site) and encyclopedia. Wikipedia's articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information.
Church/state separation and secularist organizations
Americans United for Separation of Church and State A national watchdog organization (with local chapters all around the U.S.---find one near you!) dedicated to preserving religious liberty. It is open to theists and nontheists of all kinds, and is headed by a minister with the United Church of Christ (Rev. Barry Lynn) who can be seen often in the national media and news stories centering on church/state separation issues.
American Civil Liberties Union (click on the "Religious Liberty" link) A favorite target of the Religious Right. The ACLU defends civil liberties on many fronts including church/state separation, personal privacy, and legal protection through due process. Look for a local chapter in your area to join.
People for the American Way Progressive group that supports secular values in government. PFAW is an activist organization and PAC (political action committee) working to battle such groups as the Christian Coalition. Click the "Religious Freedom" link for action alerts and information.
Freedom from Religion Foundation Great organization that defends the rights of nontheists in courtrooms, sponsors a fun-filled annual national convention, and publishes the popular "Freethought Today" (magazine written by and for freethinkers).
Godless Americans Political Action Committee Endorses and supports U.S. political candidates that support secular values in government and the rights of "godless Americans." We will have our "seat at the table" in formulating public policy.
Atheist Alliance Democratic association of various individual atheists and atheist organizations. It is a great all-around resource for all-things atheist.
Interfaith Alliance Alliance of leaders of various religions, worldviews, and beliefs that includes Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, agnostics, atheists, et al. It works to promote religious freedom for everyone regardless of religious beliefs as well as civic participation and civility. Nontheists can find theist allies here.
American Atheists Controversial atheist organization started by the infamous Madalyn Murray O'Hair. Today it fights for the complete separation of church and state, as well as for the rights of atheists in America.
Secular Coalition for America Vast coalition of secular and freethought organizations (including the Internet Infidels!) dedicated to sending lobbyists to Washington, D.C. to gain support for protecting the rights of nontheist Americans.
Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science Explores the causes of religious belief, promotes science in public schools, maintains a list of public lecturers, sells pro-secularist books and other media, and facilitates the giving of humanitarian aid to organizations that are completely secular in nature.
Rationalist Association The Rationalist Association is a focus for rationalist thought and debate in the UK and worldwide. The RA is the UK's leading freethought and rationalist book publisher.
Center For Inquiry The purpose of the Center for Inquiry is to contribute to the public understanding and appreciation of science and reason, and their applications to human conduct.
Council for Secular Humanism Large organization that offers support for secular humanists through activities such as magazine publishing, conducting secular ceremonies (weddings, funerals, etc.), educational courses, and summer camps for kids that teach critical thinking skills and secular ethical values.
American Humanist Association Promotes the spread of humanism and furthering of the humanist philosophy in the U.S. by working with and/or establishing like-minded organizations.
The Continuum of Humanist Education Online courses available for humanists in areas such as law, science, ethics, and secular humanist philosophy.
The Institute for Humanist Studies (IHS) A think-tank that offers news, opinions, information, and humor relating to humanism. It works to spread public awareness and acceptance of humanist principles.
British Humanist Association The largest provider of humanist ceremonies in England and Wales. Offers services for weddings, funerals, and baby-namings as well as general resources on humanism and support for humanist organizations.
Positive Atheism Comprehensive resource for positive atheists to learn about atheism, history, philosophy, religious freedom, and responsibility.
Unitarian Universalist Assocation A popular "church" for atheists, agnostics, deists, very liberal Christians, etc. Check your local yellow pages for one in your community or use this website's handy Congregation locator.
The Brights A movement endorsed by several prominent nontheists to adopt a new term ("Brights") with an accompanying philosophy to describe secularists, freethinkers, atheists, naturalists, etc. with the intent of putting forth a positive, and less-stigmatized, perception of ourselves. Many nontheists have encouraged its use, while many others reject it.
The Objectivist Center A controversial philosophy founded by Ayn Rand that embodies particular principles on various philosophical, political, economic, and religious issues. Objectivists generally are atheists, but atheists are generally not Objectivists.
Skeptic Society Learn how to live life free of nonsensical beliefs, and develop your own scientific and critical thinking skills. Also publishes a popular monthly magazine, SKEPTIC, which can be found in major bookstores.
American Ethical Union (AEU) The American Ethical Union (AEU) describes "Ethical Culture" as a humanistic religious and educational movement inspired by the ideal that the supreme aim of human life is working to create a more humane society.
International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) IHEU is the sole world umbrella organization for humanist, atheist, rationalist, secularist, skeptic, laique, ethical cultural, freethought and similar organizations world-wide.
Internet Infidels A nonprofit educational organization dedicated to defending and promoting a naturalistic worldview on the Internet. They offer thousands of outstanding essays, reviews, and critiques, covering everything from articles of general interest to scholarly papers by prominent nontheistic philosophers, scientists, historians, and others. Unlike most of our opponents, we even publish responses to our own pieces to encourage readers to make up their own minds. In addition to such encyclopedic resources, other features of the site are outlined in the Secular Web pamphlet, which readers may download, print out, and distribute, as desired.
"They've been doing this in China for thousands of years" "My healer is trained in Ancient Medicine" "This have been practiced by millions of people for thousands of years"
This is the exact sort of thing you hear with respect to CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine), astrology, homeopathy and so forth. Yes, its an appeal to ancient ways. But when discussing health its so much more than some fallacious arguement, its bad for the health of a society as a whole, never mind being bad for the individual. Let me explain.
It is true that Dawkins addressed this a little bit in his "Enemies of Reason" series. but I wanted to address on little bit of evidence that I dont think he made quite clear and didn't emphasise enough.
Both China and India are credited with the development of most of CAM. Acupuncture, Ayurvedic Healing, and a number of other "ancient medicines". Panda Bear M.D. has already posted some great infoabout homeopathy. Some folks have also include shamanistic indian rituals, drug use, and a number of other practices.
None of this is new or original. I really have nothing to add to the specifics of each piece of CAM, just something more general. My question when I hear a statement like those I started out this post with is:
Why would you do something that has already been shown to only allow you to live 1/2 as long?
By 1940 we had worked out the use of pennicillin, which lead to a variety of other, more broad spectrum antibiotics. 1950's we were learning to make and use pacemakers. In the '60s we were learning to transplant hearts and spinning up our abilities to fight viruses. In the 70s we started learning IVF and other fertilization techniques. I dont think I can even summarize our progress in the last 3 decades in imagining, genetics, artificial organs , etc.
An interesting overview of the introduction of western medicine into china is presented here. There we find strong resistance to the influx of western medicine in spite of various places where the western medicine was recognized as superior. Even the smallpox vaccine was still making rounds in the twentieth century.
in 1881 the very first school was made to teach western style medicine. It was quickly run down during the Boxer Rebellion, so once again western medicine was prevented from becoming pervasive in China. Even western sanitation (which goes hand in hand with medicine) was looked down upon.
Around the turn of the century there were a group of Chinese who did acknowledge that China was crumbling and needed modernization badly.
Only around 1920 did China start to require medical licenses, however both traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine were still practiced, with traditional medicine still being favored. enforcement was severely lacking.
It was not until near 1940 did western medicine start to truly penetrate Chinese society, with the obvious benefits seen in the graph.
Folks, science is supposed to change what we know. When it changes it is becoming more accurate, more informative, and a better predictor. It does this by testing hypotheses, keeping the good ones and throwing away the bad ones. Ayurvedic medicine, acupuncture, and other 'medical' treatments that have not changed in 2000 years should be viewed with intense skepticism. Anything claiming to be a science that has not changed in decades, much less centuries or millenia is bad, and not something to admire.
Wired has a great article on a bunch of nonsense products you can waste you money on. I applaud their efforts and showing this nonsense to the world, I could only dream of having the exposure the author of that article has though Wired. I am a little disappointed the Purple Tesla energy Shield didn't make the list, although the Q-Ray was first.... good enough.
My favorite part is the comments. These folks focus on the calling out of water dowsing. They insist that it works, or that they saw it working, etc etc.
Folks..... there is always water. If the dowser 'found' water in one place, you can bet its all around the area also. Its all a matter of how near the surface the water is, something the dowser will never tell you. The confirmation bias is so strong on this its unbelievable. No homeowner is going to dig another hole after they already found water! No matter where the dowser tells you, he is going to be right. That is why we study this sort of thing, and of course, every time, water dowsers do no better than chance.
Peer pressure is a topic that any parent and high school student is familiar with.
José Halloy, a biology researcher at the Free University of Brussels seems to think that he has been able to influence behavior of cockroachesthrough the use of peer pressure. The information is terse, but here is what I was able to discern: They made some little robots that had swarm intelligence programming. This is a type of programming that gives very few and simple rules to a robot. The rules usually are goal related and consist of interaction between the robot and other similar robots around it.
For example, in this case the robots were given two rules: "Get near other robots" and "go to darker places". The evaluation of each rule may be weighted (for example, if the actions contradict each other, one may be given more weight).
So they ran these tests, and the robots huddled together under a light blocking disc. So did the cockroaches. Then after doing this, they changed the programming so that the robots would prefer lighter places instead. In most of the cases (60%), the roaches followed the robots, uncharacteristically into the light areas.
Oh... and by the way...the robots were smeared with cockroach sex hormone.
Hello? Did we learn anything by this test? What happens if I put a bunny in the ring smeared with sex hormone, wouldn't I expect the cockroaches to try to hump the bunny in a big entomological gang rape in broad daylight?
While I think the little robots are cool, and swarm programming is neat (ever watch a flock of birds, its beautiful), I can't figure out what this test does except show how strong a motivator sex hormone is. I don't know what the rest of it had to do with cockroach behavior.
I don't write personal stories here very often, and once again I am going away from presenting data about something (its really quite a project for each item) in order to write a little blurb. But this recently happened and I thought I would write about it.
I have been a faithful Verizon wireless subscriber for about a decade. We had a great relationship. I paid them and they gave me a cool cell phone and good service for me and my family. After years of automatically paying them the same amount every month (thank you billpay), I was pretty content. I didn't bother them, and they didn't bother me.
Enter: The Land Line....
We recently got a house out in Nowhereville. None of our Verizon phones worked out there. however as we were building the house, we noticed that some of the workers phones worked perfectly. That was pretty annoying.
Because of our fear of the 175 dollar cancellati0n fee per phone, we decided to get a land line to the house instead of switching service.
200+ dollars installation fee
22 dollars per month for dial tone
9 cents per local call
7 cents a minute for regional calls
No long distance
This ended up being about 35 dollars per month.
they send someone out to attach it, only to have him leave after 'assessing' the area. I had previously told them that there is no phone line to the house, and the nearest active pole is on the road about 300 years away.
a week later they come out and attach power to the nearest pole and not to the house
a few days later they actually attach the phone to the house
happily I am an engineer, so instead of them charging me yet another 200 bucks because they found a short in the internally connected phone wiring because the electrician messed up, i spent all of 5 minutes looking at each of the phone jacks and found the short myself.
They left, considering the job done
They left 'underground' cable on the ground lying, and snaking in random directions generally leading to one of the poles (it was a lot of line, which I am sure to mow over one day).
I have called them 5 times to have them dig down this line, its their line, not only should they be doing it, I'm not supposed to do it at all since they own it. aLl this waiting and stalling between the time I ordered it (May) to the time we had a dial tone (july) happened while my aging mother was out there without a way to communicate (something I mentioned to them more than once).
OK we got a phone. Next step was to try to get one bill. So I had them add the land line to my wireless bill. So here was my big mistake. I admit it, I screwed up, I told them I screwed up, and would happily correct it.
I had assumed that they added the land line to my cell phone bill. What they had in fact done was add my cell phone to my land line bill. They even kept referring to this little used as my Home line (my cell phone is my home line). So my automatic payments went to the wrong place. They told me to stop paying wireless, and to make it into one bill the wireless balance had to get to zero (no credit, no debit). so I did that..... and I forgot to restart my automatic bill pay to the new account.
So months later, while I thought my phone bills were being paid, they weren't. Between June and October I racked up about 850 dollars in bills from them (no, I don't check the statements from people I pay automatically, I know I should, I just hate paperwork).
So here is the problem... Instead of recognizing our wonderful, cozy relationship for the past 10 years, and my very high credit score, the lady decided to be a snippy bitch on the phone. I was speechless, and of course thought of exactly the correct things to say 15 minutes after I hung up. I called back to see if there were some other solutions to the costs of the land line, the billing methods, and the wire that just lays there. Their only responses were "where's my money?"
The next day, I paid off my bill and canceled my land line. They asked me why, and the guy on the phone was all apologetic, and told me that one representative doesn't represent the whole company and tried to justify the cost of the land line, and make everything sound nice-nice. I told him there was nothing he could say to prevent this line from being canceled, and that if he wanted to talk to someone about it, he should talk to the snippy bitch in financial services.
But now there was no service at the house. So I went to Sprint and Cingular (AT&T), got a cheap shit phone from each, went out to the house, and found that while the Sprint phone didn't work at all, the Cingular phone worked perfectly. I went back, canceled the Sprint account, and got my mother a cool Cingular phone.
While getting the Cingular phone I had to call Verizon to get my account number. The guy on the phone caught on that I was switching a phone number away from Verizon, and started in with the 175 dollar fee. I told him that this was ridiculous since Verizon had no coverage where the phone was being used. He told me that they go by billing location. So I switched my billing location to the house in the sticks. This avoided my 175 dollar fee. Realizing this....
I switched over all the phones and got an extra phone for our au pair. Goodbye Verizon. You did everything in your power to get rid of me, and I have no qualms about dumping you like a sack of shit and writing about it.
Enter the iPhone... Well now I had the useless treo 700p. I needed a new phone, and Cingular does offer the treo also, and pretty much all the same phones Verizon had. But they also have the iPhone. Treo...iPhone...Treo...iPhone.... The choice is pretty obvious...
I've been playing with the iPhone for 3 days now. I have to admit, it really is most of what it is cracked up to be. However you have to like or "not mind" certain things to be happy with it.
Pros
The LCD screen is spectacular. I've not seen any other phone with a screen that is the clear, this bright and of course, this big.
The main interface is easy. It actually works a bit like the Wii.
The setup was easy.
The wi-fi works pretty good with no set up problems
Having my phone, camera, and music that is compatible with the Pc software I already use (Outlook, iTunes, Picasa), on one unit it truly nice.
Using it is just like in the commercial, with the zooming, and flipping through items and so forth. It is very natural and easy to understand.
Its strangely thin, but it has a decent weight that makes in seem robust (unlike a RAZR)
It has a nice way to correct for mistype, by suggesting words (yeah, I know it is a feature on other phones, so what? its still nice)
The battery seems to last as long as they say it will. I've been playing with this thing for 3 days straight. LCD has been on for a lot of time, I have made a few long calls, and the battery just died (I didn't measure the exact amount of time).
Cons
The camera blows. Its like stepping back in time to when cameras were first put in phones. The update rate is slow, and pictures are fuzzy. I'm sure this will be one of the first things they improve with the next version.
Internet access is slow, compared to my desktop (which uses a wi-fi connection). I've not used any phone internet before, even with my treo, so I can't really tell you if its typical or not. Its not so slow as to be useless, just slower. When away from wifi, using the cell network, its even slower.
It takes a while to get used to the keyboard, I often mistype. I definitely liked having real keys, like on the treo, better than tapping on a screen.
Sometimes, it isn't obvious how to get to where I need to go. For example, I didnt realize that getting from album view back to song view, required that I rotate the whole iPhone. I was looking for a button.
When I plug in the phone, Windows asks me what program I want to use for the camera, it does not give me the option to choose nothing and to always choose nothing (I have to click cancel all the time).
There is no quick access, and it really requires two hands to use. This is probably a great personal phone, and perhaps not as good for a business phone. I could use most of my treo functionality with one hand.
Well, thats it for now. If you can get to AT&T an have 400 bucks to drop, I do recommend this phone.
Posted Wednesday, November 07, 2007 by
Techskeptic
or at least I would if this occurred in nature...
I am often asked what it would take for me to change my view about the existence of an all knowing, all powerful, omnipresent being who can control every single electron in the universe. So here it is, I'm putting it out there. Its really not that much for an entity such as this, I mean, us measly humans can do it.
According to the description, there are no speakers in this demo. The sound is made by the lightning itself. Therefore all the physics are available to God, he doesn't have to affect civilization by moving a mountain, he doesnt have to turn anyone into a frog, he doesn't have to regrow a limb for anyone. Just make some lightning to some music that he also provides.
.... it would also be nice if he could draw, in lightning, some text that indicates which book I'm supposed to follow.
Well, I'm side tracking again from looking at various products. Now that I have a little baby girl, the world expands in a whole new way, I have emotions that are more powerful than I have ever experienced, and things that used to not bother me, really bother me now. Law and Order: SVU used to be just entertainment to me, now its hard to watch.
Every once in a while I come across a video that really hits home with me. The folks that produce these videos do a damn good job of explaining the effect of things from a child's point of view (well these first two at least). The great thing about it, and contrary to what many religious folks will have you believe, you don't need to make up a god and refer to a book of legends to get your morality or to teach your children. Its right there in front of us, we just have to realize it.
I'm calling these "atheist videos" only because they make a clear case, and delineate a clear message, without referring to Daddy in the sky. I'll be updating this post as time goes on and I find more vids like these, so check back on it every once in a while.
My wish is that Athiest organizations would adopt these videos and pay for them to get on television. Right now, 74% of republicans and 50% of democrats in this country wouldn't vote for an atheist president. That's more than those who would not for for a pro-choice president, pro-gay, or even a Muslim president. Atheists, need to make clear that we see morality as a function of how to improve and expand humanity, while reducing suffering, increasing happiness, and maintaining or improving free will. We need to make clear that our goal is NOT to take away your religion from you.
