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The last of its breed

scaredpoet

T42

So it’s official. The company that started the PC revolution, in its current incarnation anyway, is no longer making PCs. On Monday, IBM formally cast off its desktop and notebook PC manufacturing business into a “strategic partnership” with Lenovo, a virtual unknown with even less of a reputation than the likes of no names like Averatec or Soyo. Although the announcement was made months ago, the deal officially closed at the beginning of this week.

Let there be no doubt that I’m skeptical about this. IBM has built a reputation for notebooks that can take a beating. It’s a nice, heartwarming made-in-America legend that has suddenly been thrust into the hands of a PC manufacturer from China… a region virtually synonymous with cheap mass production.

Well, with my own laptop, a Gateway (what a mistake) getting a bit old, I decided to take the plunge while I still could, and ordered from Tigerdirect what might be the last of the real IBM thinkpads. Seeing as it’s only a matter of time now before the ThinkPad line gets assimilated with what Lenovo currently thinks is “quality,” I felt this was my last chance; that I should buy now and ensure that I get a true Raleigh, North Carolina-built ThinkPad the way IBM intended it.

And no, this isn’t some “buy American” tirade that I’m going on. I don’t have a prejudice against buying Chinese-manufactured goods. Hell, most laptops, including the Gateway I’ve owned for the last four years, have been manufactured in Taiwan. My problem lies in that from here on out, an IBM computer really won’t be an IBM computer anymore. It will simply be a copy, made by a different company, most likely with parts that are simply inferior to what IBM used to produce.

Think of it this way: up until Monday, having The Logo on your equipment was like buying a new Lexus. The IBM Logo alone adds to the cost of the laptop because the company that slaps that logo on are known for building durability and longetivity into their products. Now, imagine buying a Lexus and discovering that you paid a Lexus price for your car, only to discover that Lexus didn’t really build your car… instead, a bottom-tier company like Kia did and simply slapped the Lexus brand name on the hood under license from the real company. Wouldn’t you think a little less highly of your car? So then, why pay IBM prices for a machine that will only be an IBM in appearance and name only?

One thing is for certain: this is the last IBM product I will ever buy. And that’s truly a shame.

Pat Robertson thinks he’s a terrorism expert

scaredpoet

Pat Robertson, in his neverending quest to convince everyone that he knows what’s right for America, has gone off on another self-aggrandizing tirade. This time he claims that liberal sitting judges are a worse threat to America than Al Qaeda:

Confronted by Stephanopoulos on his claims that an out-of-control liberal judiciary is the worst threat America has faced in 400 years – worse than Nazi Germany, Japan and the Civil War – Robertson didn’t back down.

“Yes, I really believe that,” he said. “I think they are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together.”

Hmm… by defending the constitution and trying to preserve our rights in the face of an ever-fanatical government? Personally I think they’re doing the best job they can of defending our nation against tyranny. In my opinion, a religious fanatic with a hijacked airplane is harmless compared to the long term damage that can be done by a religious nutcase with a political lobbying powerhouse.

Is CNN mucking around with bloggers?

scaredpoet

An intersting article from Wired details how some bloggers have been noticing some odd behavior relative to articles written that are critical of CNN. No one seems to be sure if it’s a viral marketing campaign, an attempt to de-rank certain blogs from search engines, or whether it’s a negative-publicity/PR sabotage attempt by a third party. The bottom line is, it’s still comment spam, due to the heavy keyword-stuffing tactics being used:

Keyword stuffing was a technique commonly used at the height of the dot-com boom to raise a site’s search-engine ranking. Stuff a site with common search terms, or keywords, and its ranking would rise. But search engines are wise to the technique. Now, when search sites detect blatant keyword stuffing, they often penalize the offending site by delisting it from their indexes, or removing it from the first 100 results.

Lewis said CNN may be keyword-stuffing sites critical of the network, causing the sites to be delisted by search engines.

I might have to revisit the frequency with which I link to CNN articles.

Soul Food

scaredpoet

Kantacky

Every so often, some friends of mine and I will take a jaunt into Brooklyn to traipse about. And in our journeys, we’ve come across the above establishment, conspicuously located right across the street from The Real Thing. Every time we drove by, we’d wonder: what’s the deal? Was that the original Real Thing, and the owner just happened to lose his franchise? Or was s/he just horribly stupid and lacking in any creativity?

Welp, thanks to Satan’s Laundromat, the answer has been found.

Apparently someone decided it would be a good idea to open a place called New Kentucky Fried Chicken diagonally across the street from a real KFC. (Said entrepreneur is the same person who owns the Eleven-Seven deli on a third corner; why mess with a winning formula?) Unfortunately, the real KFC was not amused, hence the change to New Kantacky Fried Chicken.

Just an update to this: evidently, the name change wasn’t enough to mollify Yum! brands, the owner of the KFC trademark, and as a result the eating establishment changed its name to the “All Day Cafe” which is currently closed. I guess the new name wasn’t as catchy.

More info can be found here.

Cable companies used to offer FM radio. Who knew?

scaredpoet

Few people even realize that along with analog and digital video, on-demand service, music, and broadband internet, cable companies like Comcast offered rebroadcasts of plain old FM radio. The intention was to extend the footprint of plain old analog FM radio stations to communities that were just a hair too far to recieve the signal over the air, much in the same way cable TV was born to carry and extend over-the-air TV stations. The service was so niche, in fact, that Comcast thought they could stop offering the service…. until apparently, a huge uproar ensued:

While other Napa Valley communities have had little outcry, things are different in FM-starved Calistoga. Angry residents called city hall and wrote letters to their local newspapers demanding Comcast bring back their FM service. In a meeting Tuesday, Calistoga city officials voted unanimously to support its disgruntled residents by passing a resolution urging Comcast Cable to reinstate the service.

Wow, people still listen to watered-down, stodgy, boring, commercial-filled, formulaic FM radio, and they even get really pissed when you try to take it away from them. Even though there’s plenty of alternative options with actual substance that are intended to provide a national footprint, transcending the limitations of FM. Go figure.