A clusterfuck of Batteries...

Batteries… They’re the one thing that nearly every portable electronic device relies upon.  And yet, they’re the one thing that nearly everybody hates (or should).

While technology is constantly advancing, it seems like their’s one thing that isn’t: fucking batteries.

Batteries are the bane of any electronic device you have.  I have several portable electronic devices: an iPod Touch, an HTC EVO 4G, Nintendo DS, PSP, Laptops, etc…  Yet, the one thing that always becomes an issue for me are the fucking batteries…

Maybe it’s just me I don’t know but I find that the battery life on my electronic devices are never near my expectations.  Whenever I’m using one of my gadgets, there’s always that thought I have where I ask myself “How much longer I do have before the battery runs out?”

That thought is like a fucking thorn to my side… It’s always something I have to worry about.

About two months ago I had to buy a new battery for my Nintendo DS because the original one couldn’t hold a charge anymore.  The ridiculous thing is I rarely even played it.  So I get my new battery, charge it up, and I get about 3½ hours worth of gameplay before it’s dead.  The FUCK?! Now I’m not an idiot, I rarely run my devices on the maximum settings.  On a scale of 1-10, my screen brightness and volume settings are usually at a 7.  So one would think the battery would last longer yes?  Not in my case.

There are all sorts of different batteries.  Some are nickel based, some are lithium based.  Every battery has a mAh setting, and the higher the mAh, the longer it should last.  But man it certainly doesn’t seem that way to me… I suppose it’s because I’m a heavy consumer of these devices.  The thing is, the purpose of these devices are to be mobile, yet more then half the time these devices are tethered to the wall while they charge.

I wish the battery technology would hurry up and get in line with the rest of the electronic industry already…  Battery technology has been around for well over 100 years now.  Looking back at the history of battery, the technology behind batteries has been evoloving every 10-15 years.  The latest type of battery that the majority of all electronic devices use now are lithium or lithium ion, which now have been around since the early 1990′s…  You would think after 15 years of using them we’d have a new battery technology by now.

I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if these devices had solar technology that could provide a constant charge to the battery.  That would make sense right?  Solar energy has been around since the early 1960′s which means it’s been around for 40 years.  You would think after it being around for so long, the technology would be mature and cheap enough to deploy but it’s not.  That’s a whole other story I can bitch about later.

All I know is with the constant release of new technology, these things are getting smaller, faster, and are including more bells, whistles, features, kitchen sinks, etc… These gadgets are becoming more sophisticated, yet it feels like the technology that keep these gadgets running are not.

I want to see batteries that can run my small electronic devices for at least 5 days straight (120 hours) without requiring a recharge.  Once we can reach that point, I’ll be a happy camper.

The real AT&T

AT&T yesterday announced changes coming to their 3G data plans… These changes will affect everybody on the AT&T network including iPad and iPhone users.  Below the new plans are to go into effect June 7th:

• Dataplus: 200MB per month for $15 ($15 extra charge if you exceed 200MB)
• Datapro: 2GB per month for $25 ($10 extra charge per gig overage)

AT&T was offering unlimited 3G plans for $30/month for iPad users, current customers will be grandfathered in, however any customer purchasing a 3G iPad after June 7th won’t have that luxury.

AT&T claims that 98% of their existing customers should not exceed more then 2GB per month.

I seriously doubt that is the case for those iPad users with Netflix subscriptions whom stream video over 3G.  It’s pretty crappy of AT&T to make these changes especially considering how that Steve Jobs advertised unlimited 3G as a benefit for owning the iPad.

Jobs has yet to comment directly on AT&T making these changes, but something tells me he’s not happy about it.

Top: 3D glasses from the 1950s, below are the modern 3D glasses

3D has been around for quite some time, in fact 3D was considered the “golden era” in the 1950′s and yet very few films have ever been able to pull it off successively.

However, this past year it seems that the movie industry has decided to bring it back… Big time.

I consider 3D a gimmick and I’m not a big fan… This is due to the fact that needing an extra accessory to look at a screen seems stupid, even worse for those whom already wear prescribed glasses.  The other reason is that it’s a ploy for movie studios to make more money off you.  Paying to go see a non-3D movie in southern California is already ridiculously overpriced as it is which is why I rarely go to the theaters to begin with.  To see a movie after work hours rangers anywhere from $9 – $12.  If you want to see that movie in 3D you have pay an additional $2 – $4 to cover the cost of the 3D effects used and the glasses.

And while we’re talking about 3D glasses, I’d like to bring this to your attention.. Part of that extra cost you’re paying to see that movie in 3D goes towards those glasses you need to wear.  Alot of theaters would expect you toss them out after the movies are over.  So what if I choose to keep those glasses I paid for?  Can I go back to the theater and watch the 3D movie at a reduced cost?  I shouldn’t be obligated to pay the extra cost of 3D in full if I already have the accessory I paid for.  Of course this strategy would never fly with any theater, which bugs me but I don’t blame the theaters, I blame the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Having worked for MANN Theaters, I know for a fact that theaters make no money off the movies.  The only profit theaters make is what they sell from the concession stands.  The MPAA determine the cost of the tickets as well as the extra cost to see movies in 3D.  As ridiculous as this may sound, the MPAA feel they’re not paid enough for their movies they produce; so by adding 3D, they can expect us to pay (alot) more to see these movies.  If it wasn’t the MPAA’s intention to sponge more money from you, then why don’t theaters tell you to keep your glasses and not place 3D glasses disposable containers everywhere?  They don’t because they’re required to have you to pay the full extra cost to see that movie in 3D every time.  That’s the second reason why I don’t like 3D.

I can tell you that the only movie I’ve gone out of my way to see in 3D was Avatar.  Which they did very well.  However there have been alot of films that have done a shitty job with it.. I can name three off the top of my head:

• Final Destination 4
• Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland
• Clash of the Titans

Adding 3D to a shitty film does not make it better.  And that really bugs me.  It’s one thing to pay to go see a shitty movie, it’s another when you’re forced to pay MORE to see them in 3D.  That’s just rubbing salt in the wound.

This is my third and last reason why I don’t like 3D:

3D is being shoved down our throats.  The whole focus of 2010′s CES was 3D HDTV’s.  That’s all it was, a huge hype for 3D.

Lets pretend you bought into the hype:  You just bought your brand new 3D HDTV, and you’re having people over for the Superbowl party, your HDTV comes with 2 pairs of 3D glasses, but you invited over 10 people.  So these are your options:

1. You go out and buy 8 extra pairs of 3D glasses
2. You have your friends to bring or buy their own pair of 3D glasses
3. You turn off the 3D feature on your HDTV and watch the game w/o 3D
4. You have your other 8 friends watch the game on another TV because they can’t look at a blurry screen

Option 1 sucks for you because you’re paying money for something you’ll rarely need.  Option 2 would be pretty shitty for your friends if they don’t have or forgot their 3D glasses.  Option 3 defeats the point in buying a 3D HDTV.  Option 4 defeats the purpose of having a party when the party is split up.  No matter how you look at it, all these options look pretty shitty.

At this point in time, the negatives certainly outweigh the positives of 3D.  That one time when I went to see Avatar I couldn’t help but feel like a dumb ass having to wear 3D glasses to watch a movie.  They look tacky and you look stupid wearing them.  It must feel worse for those whom wear glasses having to stack glasses to get the 3D benefit.  If manufacturers are able to come up with a way to produce 3D effects on their TVs without requiring us having to wear 3D glasses then (for me) that’s a huge benefit.

CA is most likely to raise the CRV tax because of the legislation pulling money out of the account to spend elsewhere.

The John & Ken Show on KFI AM 640 revealed  September 15th about the California Redemption Value going up.  Chuck DeVore, an assemblyman in Orange County came on the show to clarify what changes are going into effect.

Basically the bill is going to be increasing the CRV deposit on all sodas, and now the bill will also apply to Juice containers, among other similar containers. The bill is expected to rake in another $2 billion dollars next year.

• Expands CA’s version of the bottle deposit
• Bill has been expanded to Vegetable, Fruit, Rice, Soy and Milk containers
• Increased the fee to the manufacturers that produce these products from 4 to 5 cents for the smaller containers, and from 9 to 10 cents for the larger (20-24oz sized) containers…Which of course the manufacturers aren’t going to eat the costs, so that’s passed on to us.
• Due to the complexity of this bill, a lot of CA republican legislators were divided when it came to the passing of this bill
• The reasoning behind the rate going up is because for the past few years, the CA legislators decided that pulling half a billion dollars from the California Redemption Rate using this money for other things including stuff having to do with greenhouse gas reductions, 22 million to the local conservation core, as well as the general fund.
• The money for the CRV account was originally supposed to go to the system recycle those products.
• Due to the deficit of the CRV account, CA legislators feel that they need to up the CRV cost of consumers to get back money lost from the outside spending.

As a resident of California, this sort of shit pisses me off.  For starters, we’re paying extra money towards a program with the idea that this CRV money is actually being used to run the system to recycle those products.  Apparently not.  Secondly, John & Ken did bring up a valid point: by increasing the value you get back from the cans, it provides you (the customer) more incentive to spend the time to turn in those cans to a recycling center to get your money back;  however they don’t want you to do that because they don’t get the money when you yourself take the time recycle your cans.  They want you to throw them out in the recycled trash that gets picked up every week… That’s how they make their money.

The program is flawed.

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Well, after spending literally 4 hours on the last chapter of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune “Showdown” where you have a stand off on the cargo ship, apparently the last boss isn’t killable… No matter what I try… Bullets didn’t seem to have any effect, nor trying to physically hit him.  I just wanted to beat the god damn game… But after 4 frustrating hours of this bullshit I was fed up; I could not rip that game out of my PS3 fast enough to fling that god damn Bluray disc.

I must say after destroying that game, it was very satisfying.  It’s too bad I didn’t capture the moment on video.

Ironically, after I destroyed it, my friend Marc told me that there was a bug with the latest version of the PS3 firmware involving this game… That explains everything.