Regular readers know of my many crushes, including one on the most fantabulous Angela Gunn. It’s because Angela is smart and savvy. She understands stuff.
Like AT&T. The comments on my post about the sucknitude of AT&T were the usual fare for when I take a stand on a non-science issue: I am a jerk, a hack, an amateur, I don’t know what I’m talking about, etc. These people are — of course! — wrong. AT&T is skeevy, and the rest of the blogosphere knows it.
So does Angela. And that’s why my crush on her continues.
That, and the sorta-half-rectangular glasses. Those slay me. Sigh.
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:57 pm
[…] unknown wrote an interesting post today!.Here’s a quick excerptRegular readers know of my many crushes, including one on the most fantabulous Angela Gunn. It’s because Angela is smart and savvy. She understands stuff. Like AT&T. The comments on my post about the sucknitude of AT&T were the usual … […]
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:32 pm
The problem with your post was not that it was amateur - the problem with your post is that you used wrong facts to bash the iPhone and AT&T. There are tons of things wrong with AT&T and the iPhone - why the need to assert the wrong facts? Would that be acceptable on any science issue? I would think not…. AT&T is completely in the wrong on their TOS and should be punished for it but lets also make something else clear - the crippling of Apples iPhones has been completely overblown. Apple should be punished for its lack of support for third party apps, lack of 3G, and the immaturity of its applications on the iPhone - but what does the media go all nuts about? a few sorry folks who decided to a) unlock their phones and b) than upgrade the firmware! c) than complain!
sigh…. you’ve complained about the media before … its even more true in the technology industry….
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:46 pm
[…] Original post by The Bad Astronomer […]
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:48 pm
IDK, she’s cute and all, but her legs seem abnormally short.
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:53 pm
There ARE no good phone companies out there.
Well, except mine, of course. Too bad I don’t do cell.
Tim - I’m just curious - how would you punish Apple for “lack of support for third party apps, lack of 3G, and the immaturity of it’s [sic] applications on the iPhone”?
It just seems to me that there’s a world of difference between a few technical issues that seem to be plaguing an essentially completely new technological device, and a paragraph in a contract (assembled by practitioners of the world’s second oldest profession, using … um… “Mature” technology).
No - I don’t own an iPhone, and I wouldn’t own one on a dare. In a couple years, when the technology has matured, I’ll think about it. Owners of cutting edge toys will occasionally get cut. I’m not about to stick my fingers into the middle of such an untried blender.
October 2nd, 2007 at 5:49 pm
I thought that selling us out to the NSA was the bigger crime- though it now seems that ATT users shouldn’t be discussing that little incident if they want to abide by their terms of contract.
In 2 or 3 years it will be commonplace for cell-phones to carry GPS. Can we trust our carriers to keep our minute by minute locations safe from governments?
October 2nd, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Christian -
It’s commonplace now for cell phones (at least in the US) to have GPS[1]. The common practice of distributing free new (low-end) phones every couple of years if you renew your contract probably means 90% of the cell phones in the US are less than 4 years old, my previous phone which is now about 3 years old, had it. Do other common consumer items contain GPS receivers? [2]
Both the previous one and the current one have a setting that it will only report its position if you make an emergency call (911). I think the default setting was it would report its position any time you made a call.
[1] This isn’t a full-function GPS. To save weight and power in the phone, it just forwards a snippet of the raw GPS signal to the nearest cell tower, which then does the number crunching to determine the location of the phone.
[2] On a recent episode of Numb3rs (I think it was a repeat from last spring), the Epps’ house gets broken into and Charlie’s laptop is stolen. He starts off on a very complicated procedure to try to narrow down where it might have been taken to. (Something I’m sure wouldn’t work unless you had an enormous database of stolen computers and where they ended up, which, if it existed, the police would use to bust the black-market stolen computer rings, and which thieves who weren’t evolution-denier stupid would instantly respond to by going somewhere else.) His brother than tells him, “lets just track it by the GPS built into it… All new computers have GPS built in.” Really????
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:04 pm
And she still doesn’t mention the fact that that clause isn’t legally enforceable. There are certain things you simply can’t sign away.
Look, yes it’s sketchy that they put it in there so they can drop C&D’s on people and hope that those people don’t realize that they don’t have to listen. But AT&T knows full well that it can’t actually enforce that clause, and would lose handily if it ever made it to court. And so I’m perfectly comfortable — as someone who actually knows my rights — to sign on.
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:05 pm
You know, this spam filter thing is getting annoying. Does everyone’s post get flagged as spam? Five or six times now my posts have been flagged and manually cleared, and still the system thinks I’m spam.
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Uh, Tim, where do I even mention the crippling of the iPhone? Ever?
I used the iPhone in the title because it uses AT&T. I wasn’t bashing it at all, I was bashing AT&T. I could bash the iPhone too — I sorta did in the comments, but not really — but the post is about AT&T.
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:30 pm
phil i seen your avatar in USA Today and it looks just like you. now thats some nifty personalization
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Nice looking and all those brains too!
You two do have a point.
I used to be a cingular customer ’till AT&T took over. Now I’m stuck with them. Funny thing, though: I was ready to bite the bullet and take whatever penalties it took to quit Cingular. They were that bad.
Then AT&T took over, and they didn’t blow quite as much as Cingular did. That said, I am willing to let my contract run out and then quit.
The thing is, nobody I’ve talked to seems to have had better luck with any other company.
Oh, and her glasses: they are even hotter when worn with the neck cord!
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:25 pm
John Armstrong (sorry about the filter, it’s pain, I know): even if it is or is not enforceable, why do they have it?
As Boing Boing pointedout (http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/02/att-snowjob-we-wont.html): “If AT&T sincerely doesn’t ever intend on cutting you off for criticizing them, they can amend their terms of service to say exactly that. It’s not as though the legalese came off a mountain on two stone tablets and changing them counts as blasphemy.”
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:50 pm
@tim. I’m of the firm belief that customers should always do their best to get away with as much they can, no matter how seemingly unreasonable. It’s the only way capitalism works. So if people want to try and change providers, and then complain when they end up with bricks, let them. I want to see if it nets them anything, and if it does, good for them.
I just wish people would blow ATM fees out of the water, there are a few places that don’t have them and can’t get them, just because of the consumer backlash.
October 2nd, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Isn’t it amazing what one little blurb about a non-important issue will ignite. Wouldn’t it be great if we could get this kind of response about space tourism or more funding for NASA, or the scientific community in general? Usually this blog is one of the more intellectual ones that I read, and it is really funny to watch people argue like a bunch of children over a phone that is a marketing tool for a company. Do I own an iPhone? No I do not. Why? Because it serves no useful purpose in my life. Is this a bad thing? Depends on whom you ask.
†Why do something intelligent in advance, when you can wait until the last minute and do something truly idiotic? “
October 2nd, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Well, at least it’s not another man-crush.
And the iPhone pwns. You all know it deep down in your dark little hearts.
October 3rd, 2007 at 6:56 am
My last dealings with AT & T were where I got phone service here in Florida (BellSouth which is now, ironically, owned by the bastards).
I kept getting calls from AT & T asking me if I wanted this service or that. I kept saying, ‘Take me off your phone list. I don’t want anything you’ve got.’
“Well, sir, it takes up to 60 days for you to be removed from our list.”
‘Ma’am, I’ve been here a year. I’ve gotten these calls for months. Your 60 days have come and gone SIX times. I will never buy an AT & T product. I don’t like the way your company does business and I never want to hear from you again. I hope I’ve been clear.”
“Yes sir.”
I never heard from them again but they’re worse than Jehovah’s witnesses.
October 4th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Talking about AT&T is really confusing at this point. I am using ATT cell phone service, ATT home phone service, and ATT cable service. Except one was Cingular when got it, one was SBC, and the other is no longer called ATT
“@tim. I’m of the firm belief that customers should always do their best to get away with as much they can, no matter how seemingly unreasonable. It’s the only way capitalism works. So if people want to try and change providers, and then complain when they end up with bricks, let them. I want to see if it nets them anything, and if it does, good for them.”
You do realize the enormous costs this sort of behavior costs us, don’t you, Ibrahim? Billions spent on copyright enforcement, copy protection, law enforcement, etc, any of that ring a bell? Everything works better if both sides play by the rules.
If it wasn’t for Apple’s insanely annoying commercials, I might actually own an IPhone. I can’t imagine how their marketing campaigns are actually successes. They’re just awful.
Also, I’d never have had to consider an IPhone if advanced phones from other companies actually made it to this country. What the heck is going on? Of the 20 or so Nokias of higher notation than the N73, only 2 (I think) are sold here. There are a ton of phones that blow the iphone away in performance of many/most tasks (though the iphone does have the great screen). They’re just not sold here.