No More Netgear Equipment

This entry was posted in Marketing Technology on by

Tegan will not be buying any Netgear equipment in the future:

So that’s it. I’ll never buy another one of their products again. And if anyone asks me, I’ll tell them to avoid Netgear like the plague, because Netgear doesn’t care about its customers.

I used to be a happy Netgear customer as well but the last Netgear wireless router I bought was incredibly flaky so I spent $60 on a newer Belkin model which has been just fine for the last year.
This equipment is becoming so inexpensive and so widely distributed that I don’t believe vendors can really afford to provide much direct customer support. So, the product better work out of the box, be well documented both online and with a local copy (hey, if it is broken you may not be able to get online) and the software upgrade process should be a snap.
Hey, when my $39-$69 phone breaks I just toss it in the trash and go to the nearest store and buy another one which may not be the same brand.
Same with home routers.

Golden Girls, Latex Boys and a Big White Bunny

This entry was posted in Culture on by

Do any of you know what the cultural context is for this not entirely work friendly bit of wierdness. Perhaps an enactment of something equivalent to a fairy tale or a story from the Japanese mythos.
There is a narrative here1 which begins:

Ok , i have posted some strange dreams before. Some strange, ill, fucked up dreams. But this one takes the cake…
In the beginning, I was at a ballet. But not a regular ballet. For one, the ballerinas were all naked and golden. Also they were dancing with a 7 foot tall fat-as-hell bunny….

It’s worth reading the rest of this before looking at the pictures but it does not provide any deep cultural background for the story.
The audience does seem to be enjoying the performance.
Via Unfogged.
1No permalinks so this may not stay at the top.

War Tax and Draft?

This entry was posted in bush cheney Constitution Iraq Libertarianism Taxation War on Terrorism on by

In an interview at Antiwar.com author James Bamford, A Pretext for War, suggests that a war tax and a mandatory draft are a sure way to assure full public involvement in the war making process:

The key problem is massive public apathy and extremely poor press coverage. I think the only way to prevent such wars in the future would be to make every citizen an equal shareholder in the war

Prison Industry on the March

This entry was posted in Constitution Drug Laws Economics Government Law Enforcement Libertarianism on by

Well, it certainly isn’t freedom on the march if Wisconsin representative sensenbrenner has his way with HR1528. Scrutiny Hooligans nicely summarizes just one part of this heinous legislation this way:

To wit, if you see your neighbor smoking a joint on his back porch at 11pm while his kids are safely tucked into their beds 25 feet away, then you must contact law enforcement within 24 hours or be subject to criminal prosecution by the U.S. Government and be sentenced to at least 2 years in prison. Your neighbor will be sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison.

Go read more and weep.
If you are even the slightest bit comfortable that stuff like this even gets introduced as possible legislation then perhaps you should move yourself over to North Korea.
Via Skippy.