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A really expensive smartphone

These days just about everyone has a smartphone. Dumb phones are a thing of the past. They are so 1999. Now days everyone is trying to get the latest and fastest smartphone. Why? It is like blue jean jackets in the 70’s. Only the coolest of the cool have the smartest of the smartphones. Therefore, unless you are rocking the Vertu Signature Touch. You ain’t nothing. BTW, do you have $11,000? (I’m not rocking the Vertu.)

From PC Mag:

I live in a 9-by-8-foot, windowless room in lower Manhattan, mattress haplessly laid on a bare floor. My diet is dominated by one-dollar slices and five-dollar footlongs. I’m a person of limited means, to say the least. And yet here I sit, holding the $10,800 Vertu Signature Touch, an Android smartphone that is, ounce for ounce, more costly than gold. It’s the absolute height of mobile decadence, complete with a personal concierge at your beck and call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Popping bottles in exclusive clubs, driving Bentleys down the French Riviera, and private mini submarine tours around the Maldives—all these things and more are just a button press away for Vertu owners. To hold it is at once exhilarating and terrifying. But this phone isn’t meant for schlubs like me; this is strictly catering to high-net-worth clientele. For a few fleeting days, though, I got a small glimpse into how the proverbial other half lives. And let me tell you, fellow plebes, they live quite well.

That’s not to say I think the Signature Touch is actually worth its weight in gold—far from it. But unlike previous luxury phones from Vertu, the Signature Touch is actually equipped to compete with more common flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S5$99.99 at Amazon and HTC One (M8)$99.99 at Amazon. That means a speedy Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chip, beautiful 1080p display, and modern Android 4.4 software. It’s an excellent phone with impressive perks for the one-percenters who can afford it. The rest of us can keep dreaming.

By ecthompsonmd|2014-07-11T22:31:38-04:00July 11th, 2014|Business, Fun|Comments Off

Did Rush Limbaugh Really Apologize?

Rush Limbaugh

The great, the Titanic, the humongous, the over-the-top, Rush Limbaugh has issued the following statement:

For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.

I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit?In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone’s bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a Presidential level.

My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.

I’m sorry, but this is the classic non-apology apology. The issue of whether you pay for contraception, whether the government pays for it or whether it paid for somebody from Mars was not the issue. The issue quickly became Rush Limbaugh calling a young coed a slut for testifying in front of Congress. That was the issue. He lost the ability to go back and discuss contraception once he called her a slut.

For those who follow media, notice that he issued his apology on Saturday. I think that speaks volumes. His arm was twisted by the executives at Clear Channel. They wanted to get ahead of this. I wish them luck. With the Internet and social media, everybody knows that Rush Limbaugh has called a Georgetown law student a slut simply because she testified on contraception. As far as I know, during her testimony she did not talk about her personal sexual preferences. Maybe I missed that.

By ecthompsonmd|2012-03-03T23:16:22-04:00March 3rd, 2012|Media|Comments Off

The Daily Show is back, really

Jon Stewart celebrates that the writers are back!

On a serious note, who won the stand off? Did the writers get what they wanted? In a nutshell, I guess the answer is sort of. This worth keeping an eye on. Workers really haven’t won a major negotiation since the 80’s, at least not that I know of.

From WaPo:Guild negotiators went in with three goals, Verrone explained. First, jurisdiction of new media. “We achieved that goal.” he said. Second, a provision that writers will be paid residuals for programming streamed on the Internet in the third year of the three-year deal.

The third goal, which was not achieved, he said, was to represent writers of reality and animation programming, who are currently not covered by the WGA — which is why you’re seeing so much reality programming on the broadcast networks’ prime-time lineups. (more…)

By ecthompsonmd|2008-02-15T22:40:07-04:00February 15th, 2008|The Daily Show|Comments Off