Month: June 2011

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Happy Fathers Day

 

I was fortunate enough to have two dads who love(d) me.

My Genetic Father is dead. My Step Father is alive and kicking.

Both of them love(d) me for who I am.

I am very lucky.

To all you men out there, Let your dad know you appreciate him.

If you’re not tied up with family of your own, go grab your dad and take some time to do something you enjoy doing together.

If your dad’s no longer with us, remember you honor him by adhering to the best lessons he taught you. Go do something you both enjoyed.

There’s that old saying something like Those we remember fondly are never truly dead.

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Apple and Flash

I’ve been getting a kick out the recent Blackberry tablet ad. You know the one, It opens with a view of the Blackberry Playbook and the sound track is the thumping base line from Queens song Flash.

Can you see where this is going?

By now the world knows that Steve Jobs is not a fan of Flash… Well Neither am I.

I think having to use flash to VIEW a web page annoying as hell.  I miss the old “Non Flash Version” link. I don’t need to see dancing dildos or whatever when I want to get to a manual for my DVD player.

I’m REALLY annoyed by the chronic “There’s an update to Flash” dialog boxes taking up 1/3 of my screen. This is especially annoying when the update is triggered by an AD somewhere on a web page that I’m not interested in. Usually I’m just trying to READ a news article.

I read a lot, so I often have my iPad close at hand. AND THERES another problem.

I’m encountering more and more web pages that I CANNOT DISPLAY on my iPad.

The message ” You don’t have the latest version of Flash click here for a free download” has become all too familiar to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I like my iPad OK but more and more I can’t use it to look at web pages. (Don’t even talk to me about trying to print, or move files between my iPad and other devices.)

If I need to look something up on the Web,  I’ll grab one of the laptops or my Android phone. Yep you read that right… my phone surfs the web with less annoyance and interruption than my 1000.00 iPad. And I might add better than my iPhone EVER did.

For that matter my 250.00 netbook works flawlessly surfing the web.

So what does this say?

Well, I’m a long time Apple fan, and I’m buying products that don’t have the Apple logo on them. I guess that means that even among the hard core fans, Apple is loosing market share.

I can’t envision myself buying another iPhone, or iPad.

I’m spending my money on products and services that offer value, convenience, and usability.
Don’t get me wrong, If the Apple product serves the purpose and is competitively priced then I’ll buy Apple otherwise I’ll choose the other guy.

Mr. Jobs is entitled to his opinion. As are we all.

Unlike Mr. Jobs I realize that continuing to swim against the tide of ubiquity is a losing proposition. Since usability is most important to me, I’ll keep upgrading fucking flash (I don’t have to like it). And my future product purchases will be devices that include flash capability.

Perhaps it’s time for Apple to step away from Mr. Jobs famous reality distortion field and have a strong dose of wake the hell up.

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I see things like this and wonder

Was reading my morning news, yeah I know bad idea… and this headline leapt out at me.

Green Lantern’ is opening. Does it appeal only to white American males?

I thought to myself DOES IT MATTER?

Why did the writer of this article think it important to ask this question?

There are a number of movies that I personally have no interest in seeing.

Were I to ask the same question about  The Lottery Ticket for example with a headline like;

Lottery Ticket opens today, Does it appeal only to Black American Males?

I’d be crucified as a racist, so why doesn’t the blade of racism in America cut BOTH ways?

According to Wikipedia the first Green Lantern appeared in 1940.

Green Lantern is a reflection of the time in which it was created.

The story Line I’m most familiar with starts in 1959 with Hal Jordan who is a fighter test pilot. Since the 1959 story line involves a fighter test pilot, and the first African American test pilot (Ed Dwight) wasn’t appointed until 1961. It’ makes all the sense in the world that Hal Jordan would be white.

It is worth noting that later in the Green Lantern story arc as early as 1971, an African American (John Stewart) is chosen by the Green Lantern Corps. Again this is a reflection of the changing attitudes in the society. The John Stewart Green Lantern is an Architect, was a Marine, and is all about Justice and doing the right thing regardless of the consequences. He’s a strong character that everyone can understand and identify with.

There was always considerable diversity in the Green Lantern story. When you consider that  The Green Lantern Corps, is coalition of aliens from many worlds all of whom are given great power and responsibility based on the judgement of the Lantern rings.

I’ve noticed chatter in the ‘net where people are complaining that Hal Jordan, not  John Stewart is the Green Lantern in the current movie.

Since I haven’t yet seen the movie, I don’t know how relevant the internet chatter is.

If the movie is about the origins of the Green Lantern on Earth then the Hal Jordan story arc makes sense. If the movie is about the Green Lantern in general then it could have gone either way.

What I find disturbing is that people are bitching about the color of the Green Lanterns skin.

If anything, the development of the Green Lanterns story over the past 50 years shows that Green is the color of justice and the color of the persons skin is incidental  to the Character and Strength of the person wielding the ring.

It’s ashamed that life is not imitating art in this case.