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The 6 Top Reasons Not To Buy An Iphone

No, I'm not going to do much Apple bashing here.

My MacBook Pro has been running continuously for 9 days and 23 hours including multiple bus commutes where it is a treat to be online immediately on opening the lid while my traveling companions, using various Windoze machines (generally shiny Dell Computers), are tapping their fingers for 2-3 minutes...

The Free Software Foundation, though, thinks that you should buy their phone instead of an iPhone 3G. Here are their 5 real reasons to avoid iPhone 3G:

• iPhone completely blocks free software. Developers must pay a tax to Apple, who becomes the sole authority over what can and can't be on everyone's phones.

Ed: Well this is not exactly a tax-you won't go to jail if you don't pay it. This is not to say I think Apple's closed model is a good thing.

• iPhone endorses and supports Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology.

Ed: A good point.

• iPhone exposes your whereabouts and provides ways for others to track you without your knowledge.

Ed: How is this is different from any other cell phone?

• iPhone won't play patent- and DRM-free formats like Ogg Vorbis and Theora.

Ed: This might be a reason to choose something else but, really, how many folks are using anything besides ACC and MP3 on their players?

• iPhone is not the only option. There are better alternatives on the horizon that respect your freedom, don't spy on you, play free media formats, and let you use free software -- like the FreeRunner.

Ed: Yep, lot's of choices out there. For my purposes the little Sanyo works just fine.

The sixth, and number one reason not to buy an iPhone in the US:

You will be supporting a criminal organization: AT&T.

It is clear that AT&T committed illegal acts prior to being granted immunity by a cowardly congress and it is clear that AT&T continues to commit immoral and unconstitutional acts to this day. We do not need to quietly accept the behavior of war criminals or the illegal and immoral acts of corporations.

The iPhone may be cool and, yes I want one, but I'm not buying anytime soon. Why are you supporting AT&T?

Both a boycott and picketing are reasonable first steps to reestablishing justice in the US. If enough join in perhaps even congress will mend its ways.

Via Just Well Mixed.

Friday Ark #201

In Memory of Sherry, publisher of What Did You Eat?, cat blogger and food blogger extraordinaire who passed away on July 20. Sherry was a strong supporter of Weekend Cat Blogging which grew out of the food blogging community and frequently linked to and escorted boarders to the Friday Ark. From #85 here is Upsie watching dad change a lightbulb.

• Jelly Pizza: Farewell, Dear Friend
• CatSynth: Weekend Cat Blogging ~ What Did You Eat? boarded 7/26

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

Cats

• Blog d'Elisson: A Visit to the Barn and Black on Black ~ Neighbor
• House of Chaos: Sweet temper
• Cat Whisperer: The Bandito Who Stole Our Hearts
• Sisu: Site inspection ~ Baby and Tiny Relaxes
• Val's Bien: Rolling on Lawn
• The Conservative Cat: Catblogging ~ Lucky and the Amazing Viper Indoor Remote Control Helicopter
• Why Now?: Friday Cat Blogging ~ Young Lions
• It's Morning Somewhere: Friday Cat Blogging ~ Not my cat
• TacJammer: Mighty Hunter and prey
• Manx Mnews: Finally Friday ~ Miss Abby
• millertime: Gizmo!
• Lab Kat: Friday Cat Blogging ~ Kitty 'Tude
• composite drawlings: Friday Catblog ~ Smokey atmosphere
• Why Travel to France: Friday France Photo: Black Cat In Window
• Paulchens FoodBlog?!: Weekend Cat Blogging - in honor of Sher
• Furry Paws: You don't scare me Vaccuum!
• Ballard Avenue: Mephista
• Adan's Everyday + Lego: Finally Friday
• Perfectly Parker: Formerly Feral Friday
• House Panthers: Floofy Friday ~ Meep
• The Cat Blogosphere: Furriday Noos
• Thoughts and Passions: Friday Ark ~ Jonah
• Little Cat Feet: Weekend News
• Joseph Palmer: Friday Cat Blogging
• Women Who Serve: Friday Cat Blogging ~ night vigil edition: Roxie, Tarzan and Ziggy Stardust
• Reading in the Dark: Friday Cat Blogging
• Dragonheart & Merlin: Frootbat Friday
• Morning Martini: Opinion by Fred the Cat
• Real Art: Friday Cat Blogging: Phil and Reine
• Camie's Kitties: Formerly Feral Friday Times Two ~ Codie and Miss Jade
• Julie's Web Journal: Feline Friday ~ Abby's back!
• (sometimes)photoblog: Feline and Furball with Feathers Friday ~ Pickle cat
• Cats, Goats, Quotes: Formerly Feral ~ KittyBoy
• Mind of Mog: Finally Friday ~ And the cats share
• Purrchance To Dream: Fest Evil
• Meditation Matters: Friday cat blogging! Weeble
• Political Animal: Friday Catblogging ~ Inkblot and Domino
• Catymology: Patio time boarded 7/26
• CatSynth: Weekend Cat Blogging ~ What Did You Eat? boarded 7/26
• Elms in the Yard: Symmetricats! boarded 7/26
• Life from a Cat's Perspective: Finally Friday with Samantha and Mr. Tigger boarded 7/26

Birds

• The Hawk's Owl Nest: I and the Bird #80
• 10,000 Monkeys and a Camera: Friday Creature ~ Killdeer
• Mike's Birding & Digiscoping Blog: One more Dickcissel...
• Bird Ecology Study Group: Nesting of Spotted Dove
• It's Just Me: Eating Chickens for Days
• Natural Visions: Friday Quiz #109
• Ecobirder: Hoodies Gone Wild

Invertebrates

• Sisu: Tiny Relaxes and an incidental pollinator (scroll down)
• TacJammer: Mighty Hunter and prey
• Henry's Webiocosm Blog: Life cycle of the Common Housefly In Time-Lapse
• Pharyngula: Friday Cephalopod ~ A subtle overlord, Sepia smithi, in blue pastels
• Burning Silo: prety in pink ~ Evening Primrose Moth (Schinia Florida)
• Ellipsis: Like I Said... Detox ~ Dragonflies
• Birdfreak Birding Blog: Phriday Photos ~ Eight-legged Water Strider
• Mokka mit Schlag: Ring-legged Earwig, Euborellia annulipes
• Cascade Exposures: Female Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis)
• Wanderin' Weeta With Waterfowl (and Weeds): Black and White, with Headlight Eyes, and Fifty-sixlegs

Other Vertebrates

• Blog d'Elisson: A Visit to the Barn
• Groanin' Jock: Dylan
• Socratic Gadfly: Friday Scat Blogging
• notes from the kelp: Off Again
• cookiesinheaven: Peruvian Paso
• What Do I Know: Friday Cow Blogging ~ Some Are Shy
• Laelaps: Photo of the Day #319 ~ Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis)
• Cascade Exposures: Baby Alpaca

Dogs

• Bearwatch: Penny Pincher and Max
• A Blog Around The Clock: Juno
• Blog d'Elisson: A Visit to the Barn
• Pamibe: Canine Carnival #38
• composite drawlings: Dogblog ~ Mutual appreciation
• Duck Pond: Friday Night Dog Blog ~ Sun and Rain: Sasha and Dexter
• Ironicus Maximus: Friday Hound Blogging: Absolut is very laid back and easygoing
• Cactus Blog: Friday Whippet Blogging ~ Jaxx and Benjamin
• Danes World: Another Goody Box???
• Mountain Musings: Fridays are Golden Lucy and Ellie

In Memoriam

• Watermark: Spike
• From Friday Ark #7 here is Spike in Denial

Didn't Make It

• x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

• x

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

• Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday
  • The 227th edition, 7/20, is up at Artsy Catsy
  • The 228th edition, 7/27, will be hosted at CatSynth
• Weekend Cat Blogging which goes up every weekend
• The 163rd edition, 7/19-7/20, is up at CatSynth
• The 164th edition, 7/16-7/27, will be hosted by the Kashim & Othello
• Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos which goes up every weekend
• The 54th edition, 7/20, is up at Samantha & Mr. Tigger Place
• The 55th edition, 7/27, will be hosted by Pets Garden Blog
• Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

• The 80th edition, 7/24, is up at Hawk Owl's Nest
• The 81st edition, 8/7, will be hosted by the Marvelous in Nature

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

• The 34th edition, June, is up at Gossamer Tapestry
• The 35th edition, July, will be hosted by TBD

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

• The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe

• The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Lets End the Medical Marijuana Raids

Reason.tv asks:

Should medical marijuana be kept from minors at all costs?

We should also ask:

Should Sheriff Pat Hedges, the local deputies and the federal thugs who accompanied them on the raid of Charley Lynch's medical marijuana dispensary be arrested and tried for crimes against humanity?

If the entrenched legislative bodies and criminal justice system will not properly deal with these perps then it is time to create a replacement system.

Via Winston Smith.

Time to Follow the French

The French are taking a step, albeit a small one, that the rest of the world, especially the United States, should follow:

France's military will slash its ranks by 54,000 personnel and close dozens of air, army and other bases in an overhaul meant to slim forces at home while making it easier and faster to deploy troops abroad, the prime minister announced Thursday.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the 15 percent cut in manpower and base closings will save billions of dollars but still permit an agile military suited to the country's security needs.

This small beginning in demilitarization will open the doors to our future just a bit wider. A future of free human beings creating and evolving rather than nation states destroying and killing.

It is unfortunate that opposition to these clearly desirable actions comes from those who live off the milk of the state:

Officials in towns slated to lose their bases argue the plan will be disastrous for local economies and say they will fight the closures.

Fillon said he understood people's fears and promised $503 million in aid to the most affected regions, many in France's depressed northeast. He also said measures would be taken to encourage investment in the those regions.

Fight the closures they might but their futures will be much stronger if built locally rather than on the backs of taxpayers and at the whim of national or state governments.

These bases should not have existed in the first place and that they have is no rationale for either maintaining them or subsidizing local economies once they are gone.

Summer Olympic Birds

In an on line exclusive, I and the Bird #80 introduces the participants in the first ever I and the Bird Summer Olympics.

Go check out the competitors!

Knols and 'Pedias

I think we are all familiar with the mass produced Wikipedia, right?

Today Google opened a bit of a competitor, Knol, to everyone:

Knols are authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects. Today, we're making Knol available to everyone.
.....
The key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an author (or group of authors) who put their name behind their content. It's their knol, their voice, their opinion. We expect that there will be multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good.

It is interesting that also today the Medpedia Foundation made more information on their project available:

The Medpedia Project today announced the formation of the world’s largest collaborative online encyclopedia of medicine called Medpedia. Physicians, medical schools, hospitals, health organizations and public health professionals are now volunteering to collaboratively build the most comprehensive medical clearinghouse in the world for information about health, medicine and the body. This free public site will officially launch at the end of 2008, and a preview site becomes available today at www.medpedia.com.

Both look like very interesting and potentially valuable projects.

However, if you look at the many sample Knols on the Knol front page you will see that most of them are oriented toward medicine and written by professionals.

I can't visualize medical professionals having bundles of time to write and maintain the types of expert articles that both Knol and Medpedia visualize. In fact, this is one reason at least one observer expects Knol to fail.

Is Google trying to preempt Medpedia?

Via Wired Campus.

Gmail Recycling Tip of the Day

From the information bar right above the Archive button:

You can make a lovely hat out of previously-used aluminum foil.

Yours may say something different...

Being Google I also expected to see links to the best tin-foil hat design pages.

They Are Not Mocking

Radley: I don't mean to mock...

Kip: My Point is not to mock...

The subjects handle the mocking just fine...