Dear Jeff Zucker,
You have already found a perfectly great way of ending the piracy of NBC Universal motion pictures. They already suck, and therefore no one will steal them. Promise.
Of course, this is only because you refuse to do your real job, which is making great TV and Film products, and instead are wasting time at fucktard events. Get back in the saddle or quit your gig and let someone else do it.
Without Wax,
kev~!
I can’t really get my head around the insanity that is the New England Patriots getting caught illicitly spying on other NFL teams and getting busted so harshly that the coach loses half a million bucks and the team loses a quarter million and a first round draft pick. Compare that with Dubya, who, as a self-proclaimed ‘patriot’ illegally spies on U.S. citizens and, what? Does he lose money? Nope. Does he lose liberties? Nope. Is he impeached? Nope, but he’s probably been given some cobbler. He did lose some goodwill of the people, which he doesn’t care about anyway, and he finagled congress to enact a law that makes what he was doing legal instead of being drubbed soundly for his illegal actions.
So yes, in America, you break the rules and lose money, you illegally misuse the power of your office and you get congress to make it legal for you. Am I the only one who sees the irony?
Ok, so the Montana Democrats had a contest. I, along with another creative gentleman, won. We each got $50.00, which is a nice round of drinks that I fully intend to have tonight. And while bragging about winning is always fun, there’s more to this story than meets the eye.
You see, not only does my mother work for the illustrious “Brad’s Johnson“, she’s the head of the Lewis & Clark County Republicans. Did I mention I’m gay? Oh, but wait, there’s more.
Know how I found out I won? Mom got asked in the office if she knew I’d won by someone who’d been contacted by someone else who apparently had read the press release that went out from the Montana Democratic Party on Friday of last week. For the record, she didn’t even know I entered. My guess is that someone from the press called to get a quote from Brad’s Johnson about the contest because it’s a slow news week, Apple having announced the new iPods last week. Even better, the MDP hadn’t even managed to get their site updated as the press release about this contest was the last official duty of their outgoing communications director.
The press release followed by the request for comment to the reporter becomes even funnier because, let’s be real, Brad’s Johnson (nor any other part) wasn’t in the office, which is his normal routine. He might have the title of secretary of state, but he’s never in that office.
Alas, it seems he’s pissed at me. (HA! Brad’s Johnson is pissed! Get it? HA!) He might be pissed:
Whatever the reason, he’s pissed. I don’t care. Frankly, the people of Montana are pissed at him for the poor job he’s done and incredible lack of ability he’s displayed. So let him be pissed at me for my wit. That’s fair, fine and dandy.
However, there are some rumblings that life at work for my mom is going to be rough. And I have a few thoughts on that: I doubt it would come down to such childish behavior, but it might. I know the reason our society is as great as it is, can weather the storms of stupidity that periodically race through our history, and will get through the current debacles that abound, is because we have the freedom to speak our mind. Anyone who thinks that towing the party line is more important than exercising our rights has more in common with Putin than our Founding Fathers. I’m sure everyone would hate to find out that our state government was riddled with that crap, but I don’t know that anyone would be shocked, if only because people tend to already be pessimistic about government.
Anyone who has met me knows that I’m going to speak my mind, no matter what. Client meetings where I’ve been asked “What can you make with vinyl?” have elicited “Ass-less chaps for Pride.” from me with nary a blink or a pause. I have worn a shirt that says “No. Dude. Seriously. Fuck You.” to client meetings, lunches with business people, a school and a church. Freedom of speech is important to me, and I invite anyone who sees that shirt or hears my words to debate me on it. Yes, I’m on the edge, but that leaves more room at the middle for others.
If Brad’s Johnson is bent out of shape (curves left now? odd that) and he wants to debate his benefits against his deficits with me, I’ll gladly meet him at a podium, anytime.
That, of course, presumes he could bother to make it to Helena at some point.
Ok, so I was thinking about the whole “Apple is getting a cut of AT&T’s revenue” thing, and I’m calling bullshit. It’s not what people think - at least, not that I can find anywhere. So again, bear with me.
Let’s check the facts:
And that’s where we come upon the real interesting bit: Visual Voicemail is a patented feature of an Apple product. It’s the only part of the iPhone that falls outside the GSM specs and it’s the only part that AT&T had to specifically build out for. AT&T built out for it because they wanted the iPhone, but can anyone imagine those assholes paying out over 24 months for the privilege of letting their customers use the iPhone? AT&T doesn’t care about their customers, and they never have. Look at the rest of their restrictive, expensive crap and tell me they care. Call them with a problem, and then, no, don’t call me, because I already know the rant you’re going to spew.
A fairly steep, rumored to be 10% of the revenue stream is paid to Apple. And given that Apple strong armed AT&T into unlimited data plans for effectively $20, I’m going to guess that Apple worked on the implementation tools for the AT&T Visual Voicemail servers after getting AT&T to agree to this payment. But what is the payment actually for? Use of Apple’s patented technology, that’s what.
And it’s why, even when the iPhone gets unlocked, it won’t ever work just right unless the carrier is paying out the ass to Apple for the patent rights to give users Visual Voicemail.
This idea isn’t the only way that the AT&T deal could work now, and I have no insider information on that at all. However, given the rumors that are coming out of the EU about how it’s going to launch there, you better believe that the only way Apple is going to let those carriers have the iPhone is for those carriers to license the Visual Voicemail technology that Apple has invented, patented, and developed.
Patents make the whole mess make sense. Crazy times, indeed.
[UPDATE]
I just read Paul Boutin’s article on Slate (tip via Gruber) comparing the Blackberry to the iPhone, and about halfway through he states, “The iPhone’s Visual Voicemail feature lets iPhone users scan a text list of all voicemail messages in their inbox and jump to any of them in any order. AT&T won’t let me do that on a BlackBerry. Neither will anyone else.”
Let me state it again: Apple owns this feature and technology, and licenses the patent to AT&T. Trust me, if AT&T could screw Blackberry out of more money by licensing this tech, they would. It’s AT&T’s way.