Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Wednesday, February 07, 2024
The Death of Apple
One of the reasons I've always liked the Mac is that I seldom have had to rely on what Apple loosely terms "Customer Support." Originally, Apple Customer Service Representatives were highly motivated, knowledgeable, helpful and accessible. They could solve almost any problem by phone, cheerfully and authoritatively. For all I know, they may still be. But I don't know, because Apple does its best to shield customers from reaching them.
And that's where Apple's Great Decline begins, because customer service is where the first tiny corporate cracks appear.
In its revolutionary retail stores, Apple staffed it Genius Bars with kids who were anything but. Due to slave labor in China, most "repairs" became cheap enough to be "solved" by simple replacement. Nobody knew -- or had to know -- what went wrong with your machine, because Apple would have had to train people to know stuff like that. It was much more expedient and fiscally sensible to just grab a new widget off the shelf and be done with it. Any dummy can do that. And they did. Until Apple phased them out. Poof.
For a while, Apple system upgrades were generally worthwhile, too, with each new version offering simpler, improved systems that performed more tasks. For years, Apple and Mac really were brands that made creativity more achievable through technology.
Then Steve Jobs died and it all started sinking fast.
The first noticeable sign was Apple's name change from "Apple Computer" to "Apple, Inc.", signaling its expansion into ancillary endeavors like phones, movie studios and automobiles. As such, the Mac OS sacrificed making things for buying things. It didn't take too long for desktops and laptops to decay into larger, heavier versions of iPhones, whose systems predictably merged into platforms with the same looks and feel, dumbed down for people to whom "thinking different" is difficult, because simply thinking is out of their realm. They just want to buy things with a point and click.
These days, if you want to solve a problem, it's actually more difficult because Apple has buried everything under the hood, preventing users access to solving their issues on their own machines. Apple does its best to prevent you from calling them on the phone, suggesting instead that you "interact with others in "our Apple Support Communities" online. It's a great place, populated with more people with even more problems and almost no solutions. To make matters worse, if you utter anything that the lords of Apple find unfavorable, your comment is removed for "inappropriate content." Phrases as mild as "but nobody at Apple will respond" just burn up in the ethosphere, never to be seen again.
Currently, Apple is anything but its founder's vision of making life simpler, elegant and more powerful. It wasn't tough to see it coming. That's why I keep a machine with ancient system software on it: If I'd upgraded when dictated to do so, I would have lost access to thousands of dollars worth of software with which it was incompatible. Apple's whim would have forced me to buy new hardware and software. Completely unacceptable corporate hubris.
All of which is to say, unpopular as it may seem, that Apple's days are numbered. It's actually following the "three generations of wealth" axiom: The first generation creates it; the second generation spends it; the third generation loses it." If you disagree, just look at the history of General Motors, IBM, RCA and dozens of twentieth century brands that are either defunct or have disappeared. They were once the biggest companies in the world. Huge, hardy and undefeatable. Nobody ever expected their demise, either. That's because while fortunes are always won and lost, human nature remains constant.
In the end, incompetence and greed always destroy great societies and powerful brands from within. Apple has built its mammoth, circular offices in Silicon Valley as a monument to itself, never realizing that Egyptian pharaohs built their own mausoleums, too.
Friday, December 15, 2023
Ego Defeats Communism
As the globalist hysteria wanes around the world -- and don't kid yourself, at the time of this writing it really is waning -- one can't help wondering as to why the socialist, communist and globalist agenda are falling flat on their faces. Though history teaches us that the world is an ever-changing vortex, not everything shifts in the wind. Some things never change.
And because they don't, changes are definitely on the way.
Forget about which political party you hate. Ignore any candidate you favor. Because at the end of the day, neither is really important. I'll tell you what's really important: Getting a glimpse of what a non-capitalistic society really looks like.
Sure, we've all heard stories about the travails and travesties of Soviet communism. Long lines at grocery stores. Miles of empty shelves. Years of waiting for mediocre goods and services. And the Chinese version isn't much better. The Chinese aren't exactly swimming in luxurious lifestyles, except if you complain about it, you disappear forever. And let's not write off North Korea. When it comes to starvation, you just can't beat 'em.
But that's not what's keeping western socieites from embracing communism. You know what it is keeping them from embracing it? Good old-fashioned, reliable, ego. Think I'm wrong? Take a look at this lovely little illustration.
See that really dark blue? Those are exclusively western civilizations. Every one of them is capitalist. See all those other countries? They're not. Now total up the populations of those blue countries and you know what you get? That's right: a small minority of the world's population holding a disproportionate amount of wealth. And I'm not talking about a little more than average. I'm talking about a lot more than average.
At the moment, there are eight billion dopey humans inhabiting this planet and less than 12% of them are dark blue. The other 88% are swimming in their own filth, trudging to and from their huts to scratch out their daily bread in some miserable landscape.
Yeah, that's where the globalists live. That's how the globalists live. Which means that if the World Economic Forum ever does achieve global domination, all those dark blue, Tesla-loving, vegan-bragging armchair socialists are going to take a huge hit in their standard of living. When they realize that a global redistribution of wealth would cut their $100,000 annual income down to an internationally equitable $4,000, their opinions start to change -- rapidly.
Not sure I'm right? Then explain to me why those same armchair socialists have begun reversing their "sanctuary city" status while complaining about all those illegal immigrating "refugees" littering their streets and filling up their hotels. Apparently, those dark blue backyards aren't quite as far off from globalist destruction as those armchair socialists thought.
Oh, there are lots of other reasons why socialism and communism will never win. Some are human and some are just common sense. But all of them have one thing in common:
History may be fluid, but human behavior never changes.
Thursday, July 27, 2023
Spinning Taiwan
Friday, June 23, 2023
Where's the Beef?
Thursday, June 08, 2023
Newsom versus Trump, 2024
1. Newsom is Nancy Pelosi's nephew. Her inter-married families have ruled California for the last 60+ years (Google "Brown-Pelosi-Getty-Newsom California" to learn that history). Now they're going for the brass ring. Nancy will use everything she has to put Newsom in contention for the presidency of the United States.
2. At this writing, the only Democrat in the field other than Joe Biden is Robert Kennedy Jr., who is, by all accounts, a flash in the pan. He entered the race way too early, and my guess is that by the later part of 2023, his one-note sonata will have run out of gas. Yes, the vaccines were bad. Yes, their purveyors are criminals. No, neither he nor anyone else is going to do anything about it. Other than that, RFK has no domestic or international agenda.
3. Joe Biden, by all acounts, is senile. Even the Democrats want him out, but shudder to imagine Kamala Harris in the White House, so they're content to hold that off.
4. Between Senile Joe and RFK, Newsom can and will be positioned as the "reasonable alternative" as the public will forget all the damage he's done to his home state. All of that won't matter, because the Dems will be left with no choice other than Newsom -- Pelosi will see to that. And just in case you were wondering if Newsom can attract less radcial Democrats, I humbly submit that Newsom is a white male, which never hurts.
This may explain why we're currently seeing Newsom taking shots at Ron DeSantis, not Trump. By doing so, Newsom is attempting to elevate himself to presidential levels. If this plays out as I think it will, we'll see Trump run against Newsom, with Newsom leveraging the Never-Trump faction against Trump's twin agenda of domestic/foreign accomplishments and Newsom's mismanagement of California.
There are some who believe the Trump has run out of steam. There are those who believe Newsom could really win. I imagine those are the same people who buy Bud Light at Target.
Sunday, April 30, 2023
The Lost Art of Initiative
Still, I'm just as tired of hearing young people whine about everything as you probably are. Mostly, it's their inability to meet potential life partners, but it seems that since the invention of the play date, kids have grown up expecting things to be served up to them. To most of them, swiping left or right can determine their Saturday night plans. Pointing and clicking not only lays a world of options at their feet, but enables expectations that are wholly unrealistic and somewhat depressing.
When the internet became real (I use 1998 as the date), it held a lot of promise about connectivity, open resources and the freedom of access to information. I was there. I recall the rush of excitement of not only global reach, but instant global reach, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But the one thing nobody saw coming ended up crippling an entire generation of humanity:
The internet destroyed initiative.
It turns out that when you lay the world at people's feet, they start expecting you to, well, lay the entire world at their feet. When they're just a screen away from getting results, they begin to think that life is an instant set of search results. They stop asking questions. They stop wondering. It doesn't occur to them to object to anything. They cease developing their innate hunting skills in favor of leaning back and waiting for their next request to be fulfilled.
People often ask me why the world is in "such bad shape." I tell them the world isn't in bad shape at all. Everything we had before 1998 is still there. It's just that a generation lacks the initiative to get out there and hunt for real answers to real questions that suits their own real interests. If you settle for what Google tells you is the answer, you deserve what you get: an unfulfilled life.
Think I'm kidding? Take a look at some of the confused, irrational and downright impossible policies that are being proposed, passed and enforced by the people in charge of your local, state and Federal government. People who just a few short years ago had no problem defining what a woman is or understanding that you can't ban airplanes or diesel-powered ships and still get to Hawaii mostly grew up in the age of point and click.
This whole issue was brought to a head when I overheard some young guys bemoaning their frustrations with dating. Hey, let's face it: every generation moaned about meeting someone. But these young men use dating apps and dating websites and just about anything else that could charge a monthly fee, and none of them was meeting anyone. That's when I asked them about taking some initiative. "Are you going out there? Are you hunting for these women or just sitting around? Are you dressed like a winner or a loser? Even at the grocery store, you need to be on the lookout. You have no idea how many people fall in love in the produce section!"
While that piqued their interest, they responded lethargically: "Yeah, but where are we supposed to go?" At this point, my being helpful got charged with my own frustration: "Just be an interesting young man and if she's of interest to you, ask her along! To Museums! Art galleries! Parks! Theaters! Bars! Clubs! Grocery stores! Nature hikes! Just walking down the street! Say hello! Make conversation! For crying out loud, you want me to fuck her for you, too?"
It might be the most Old Dad thing I've ever yelled.