Some Thoughts On The Forthcoming Apple Watch

I am generally an Apple fan. I'm not a consumerist so I'm not exactly their ideal customer (I write this on the last model of the BlackBook. you'll figure it out). I have a first generation iPad because, well it does what I want it to do. I have an old 32GB iPod touch because it does what I want it to do. I also own a relatively large collection of watches.

I like watches. I live analog watches the most. Mind you I'm not a technophobe, I loved Fossil's Wrist PDA product and probably put a few years on my eyes while it worked. I also have a Nike+ Gps watch because I run, not jog, run and I have other GPS items that I can record my bike rides, though unfortunately it doesn't sync with Nike+. The point being is that the idea of the Apple Watch appeals to me, but I'm not sure if I'll buy one...or at least do more than buy one and wear it every now and then until it collects dust.

I say this because the reason I like my watches is because they are all different. Different straps. Different shapes. Different features. It is not merely the same watch with different interchangeable faces. Furthermore; when they were bought they were bought with the clear understanding that they would never do anything more than what they do and I rarely have to replace a battery (for those that are not self-winding).

Problem is that the Apple watch for me, would be a very expensive "look at me" piece that got worn very few times. Even at it's cheapest, $350 so I'm told, that would be a very expensive "look at me" piece. Perhaps that just means I'm not the customer that Apple is looking for. I also wonder if the current generation, having not had a need for a wristwatch since they have phones on them at all times, will warm to this past the initial "ohh this is nice" phase.

One way to kind of gauge this would be to see how well the Pebble watch is doing as well as looking at how popular the short lived iPod Shuffle that people converted into a watch was because anyone paying attention knows full well that the upcoming iWatch IS that iPod Shuffle idea with a far better design and OS.

One thing from my Wrist PDA days though: Battery life. It was quite annoying to discover that my watch was dead because I had forgotten to charge it overnight. Or it was dead because some process on the watch went wild and ate the battery. Or that it died simply from sheer use. It charged via USB so I took to plugging it up any time I wasn't traveling. I'm not sure how the masses of people will take to having to do the same (particularly if they are using the health tracking monitors that require contact with the body).

We shall see soon. I hope if goes well for Apple in the long term. I figure most people aren't packing a dozen or more watches in their homes, so one good watch is all they will want. If that's the case, and they're willing to pony up. Apple could very well have a hit on it's hands.

Makes No Sense...

From the NY Times in regards to Dominique Strauss-Kahn:

Not least in France, where sex with prostitutes is not illegal, but soliciting and pimping are, the case has generated questions about whether the laws against prostitution need updating. Some argue that the country should adopt Sweden’s practice of prosecuting the clients of prostitution rather than the prostitutes themselves, some of whom can be victims of abuse, coercion or trafficking.

If one needs a prime example of misandry this would be it. If it is OK to have sex with a prostitute, that is, if it is OK to conduct the actual business, how is it that soliciting is illegal?

Imagine that you were told that buying alcohol was legal but you couldn't go to the store and ask for the bottle on the shelf.

What these kinds of laws actually represent is a irrational criminalization of [heterosexual] male behavior. What kind of people pass these kinds of laws? If the product or service is legal, then it's solicitation is legal. You cannot have business of ANY kind without solicitation.

It is high time to remove the emotionally imbalanced and those susceptible to their pleadings out of government and away from the levers of legislation.

Faux Outrage

From the NY Daily News

Target is being criticized for advertising its "Annie"-themed clothing line with white models when the movie character is played by a black actress.

More than 10,000 people have signed a Change.org petition asking the company to replace ads with ones featuring girls of color.

"Being African American is not ugly, it is not bad and we are sellable!" the petition says. "These grossly misleading ads are adding to the divide and does not give young African American girls aspiring to become actors anything to be optimistic about."

Funny thing about this is:

Original Annie

The original Annie, including Daddy Warbucks, is white. Had white folks gone about complaining to whomever about the replacement of the white character, as originally conceived, by a black one, people would have shitted themselves. Yet I would completely understand doing so. It's not like The Wiz vs. The Wizard of Oz, in which the former was based on the latter but clearly named to establish that these were in fact different visions of the same movie.

In this case the entire idea of Annie was remade for whatever purpose. Now people want to be mad about advertisements that feature girls of the same race (mostly) as the originally conceived Annie and folks are upset.

To me, better to have not even remade Annie so that the perpetually outraged could go about making their own stories rather than insisting on placing themselves into others.

Seriously. I cannot get myself worked up over this!

What Kind Of Engineering Is This?

So there I was perusing autotrader.com as I contemplate my next car given that one of my current ones has nearly 200k miles on it. Generally speaking, I call quits at 200k. So having had a 1987 6 series, I looked at the new(er) model 645ci's for sale. They have dropped in price quite a bit (hello depreciation). Also that model is the only one you can get a manual transmission with (the current lineup doesn't have a manual unless you get the M model. No thanks). So having lined up an interesting model, I went and did the due diligence: Google Search: known issues with 2005 BMW 645ci

And the above is partially what I found.

Wow.

Apparently the engineers at BMW who designed this engine decided that to get coolant to the engine they would put a pipe from the front of the engine where the water pump is, to the back of the engine. Of course this pipe isn't a part of the aluminum block. No it's connected at both ends by a rubber seal.

Seriously. And it gets worse.

At the back of the engine is a cover that directs the coolant to the two banks of the engine. This too is connected via a gasket.

Do you know what it takes to replace the back cover? Removing the tranny and the exhaust.

Seriously.

Do you know how much that costs at the dealer? About 2 grand. But that's not all.

Do you know that the pipe they fitted is KNOWN to leak at the rubber seals. Do you know that this is expected at about 89k and can happen at 40k or so.

Seriously.

You know how much the dealer wants to charge to replace that with another failure prone part?

$5000 - $9000.

You read right.

However did that get past the management? I've read that a sales person told one owner that "well the car was 80K new so you should expect high repair costs."

Sir. There are high repair costs and there is a total engineering fail. The cooling system design is the latter.

Now I'm a diy person so I don't scare easy on old cars. Valve cover gaskets are cake to me. I've done 'em at least 8 times already. I've done a power steering rack. I've done motor mounts, Alternators, and the like. If I have the tools, agreeable weather and can do the job safely, I'll do it myself. But the online PDF I saw to replace that pipe ran nearly 30 pages with photos. The amount of stuff you have to remove just to get at the valve covers shocked the hell out of me.

I think that the management at BMW said to themselves one or both of the following:

1) Well we stuck these fools for $80k+ when the car is new so these suckers can pay us nearly $11k to pay for our design flaws.

or

2) Well the original owner paid us nicely. We can make more loot when this car hits the second hand market and these poor buyers get stuck with these cars they invested in and have to pay for repairs (hopefully coming to us, but we'll take the money for the parts).

So this is my PSA for those of you out there looking at any V8 BMW from 2004-2010. If the pipe has not been replaced recently (preferably with one of those aftermarket ones I've seen) AND the alternator cover (whatever that is) gasket hasn't been done, along with both valve cover gaskets, do NOT purchase the vehicle unless you are willing to do the job yourself. You are going to get hit with a rather large repair bill because these are labour intensive jobs.

PS While I'm at it, can we do away with these engine covers? Unless they are helping airflow around the motor or helping dissipate heat there is no reason for them and they're just another thing that has to be removed and re-installed when work has to be done.

Makes Me Wanna Hollar[Back]

So unless you've been under a rock for the past week you heard about this video of a white woman (allegedly Jewish, not that it matters) walking around Manhattan NY for 10 hours racking up 110 harassing incidents. There are a couple of things that should be noted about this video, lets get to it.

1) The Maths.

Getting 110 incidences of “harassment” in 10 hours could seem to be quite epic. The video is highly time compressed and focuses on what I assume were to more “egregious” examples of harassment. Indeed the end of the video has text that indicates that “winks” and “whistles” were edited out. We'll get to that in a few but first the maths.

First and foremost. Who. THE. FUCK walks around Manhattan NYC for 10 hours straight? No seriously. I'm not just talking about being out and about for 10 hours. I mean walking around apparently aimless, without any expression whatsoever, speaking to nobody? Not even a cell phone call? No headphones? Who the fuck does that in New York City? For goodness sakes at least act like a normal person in NY and put on some sunglasses (you know we all wear 'em) and put on some headphones like everybody else and look like you're going somewhere to do something. Ok rant over. Back to the maths.

So 100 incidences in 600 minutes means someone did something every 6 minutes. We do not know whether incidences like the crew of men who told her to smile were counted as one incident involving multiple persons or multiple incidences with one per person. If it is the latter then I think the count needs to be dropped. Why? Because if a group of people stop you and robb you, you weren't robbed three times but you were robbed once by three people.

2) What exactly is harassment?

I have a problem with some of the actions considered harassment. It appears that the author ascribes to the theory that any comment made within earshot whether directed at the person or not, that is not specifically asked for, is harassment. I do not ascribe to such a theory. This theory presupposes the idea that we each can police the bodies of other people. That simply is unacceptable. To this end I completely reject the claim that “winks” are harassment. I also reject the idea that saying “good morning” is harassment. I do not know how many of the 100 were winks and “good mornings”. But removing those incidences would lengthen the time between incidences.

So what is harassment? Harassment is generally behavior meant to disturb or upset someone. One may claim that one wishes to walk down the street and not be spoken to (or to speak to anyone) and therefore anyone who DOES speak to you is harassing you. The problem with that is it assumes that all unsolicited contact is harassment (it is not). It also assumes that everyone knows that you do not wish to be contacted. That's what we refer to as mind-reading. Those of us in a sane world know that we cannot expect others to know what is in our minds. Also it assumes that such contact was done with the intent to disturb. With this in mind we return to the video to comment on the actual harassing that was done.

Those persons who felt the need to tell Shoshana that she “needed to smile” were harassing her. Criticising a person on the street because you don't like how their face looks is definitive “disturb”.

I'd like to point out something here though. In this video there are a total of three women in the scene. In front of Shoshana was a rather large woman in a pink top. Apparently nobody said shit to her. Is it clear to Shoshana that she is the recipient of "looks privilege"? The worst cases were the black guy who decided to walk beside Shoshana for blocks. A couple of things on this:

In the beginning this guy wasn't out of line. He said his piece seeing if he would get a response. Then it looked like he was going to take his rejection..

But then he goes to walking beside her for quite some time. Let's discuss what is likely going on here Most of the black males commenting assumed Shoshana was “Latina”. This is evidenced by the “hey mami” comments. It is a pretty well known fact that black men, in general have a thing for “not so black” women. OKCupid did research on their members that shows that their black male customers preferred “latina” women over black women (note check the really low scores that black women get from other races. It is not pretty). Other research shows that black men “marrying out” at a rate of 22% (and IMO that number is growing) beaten only by marrying out by Asian women (who usually go after white males. Many Asian males are NOT happy about that).

With this in mind we realize that the fellow walking next to Shoshana was actually using her as a prop to show off to the community that he is “with” Shoshana.

Ohh lookit me with a WHITE[ish] GIRL!!

His hope is that one of his boys would see him with the “mami” whome he would later get props for “getting at”. For those of you who doubt this phenomenon I will relate a date I was on with a biracial woman who would be classified as “latina”. We went somewhere I have gone to in the past. As I walked to the bathroom to wash my hands, I was given the “thumbs up” by not less than 3 black males who were in the restaurant with their dates (I presume). I have never had any such thing happen when I was in the same location with black women. Never. And yes, they were attractive thank you very much.

So in essence not only was Shoshana making a commentary on street harassment, but she was also demonstrating her high status among those black males relative to the black women who we can also see in the video who not a single man in the street made any commentary too.

Does that mean that black women do not get that treatment? They do. I have witnessed it.For example, one summer on the 165 street mall/walkway off Jamaica avenue. There was a rather hour glass shaped woman in very form fitting clothes who got the attention of a crew of men by a sneaker store. So yeah it happens. But to be sure it happens to women who are considered above average attractiveness. But anyone who is honest knows that special attention is given to those “not so black” women.

3) Courtship or Harassment?

The next incident of note is the rather persistent male in the red cap.

What's the phrase? Persistence is the key to success?

There is a problem with this example because it starkly highlights the gender expectations in “courtship”. In essence men are expected to take the risks and approach women. There is usually a high level of rejection and a level of game playing between genders where persistence is required to make a connection. Anyone familiar with the classic Roxanne Roxanne track by UTFO knows that is a shining example of “rapping to a sista”. In short, the idea is that if you have the “right rap” you an get "the digits" (e-mail address preferred!) and hopefully more. However it is expected that you will be rejected or met with skepticism with your first attempt and therefore a bit of persistence (sometimes called “game”) is necessary to get past the “get away from me loser” response.

Higher status men are usually able to use their material possessions to get past the “get away from me loser” and can illicit positive responses with their vehicles, clothes and jewelry. Low status males usually can only depend on their guile and slick words. Mr. Persistent was by appearances a low status male. That's not to disrespect him. It is what it is.

So here's the thing. Is it fair for a society that expects males to take all the risk in initiating courtship to also be hit with charges for harassment? Doesn't sound fair to me. On top of that, while we could say that “he should have known” once she failed to respond, I would counter that it was her failure to respond that turned this situation into what it became. Is it too much to ask that once it was clear that this fellow was trying to ask her out (as HE is expected to if HE is interested) that she tell him “thanks but no thanks”? Is regular human common decency no longer expected from women? Here is a heterosexual man trying to get the attention of a woman (you know, normal shit) and he's being clowned across the internet for it. For all the talk of the importance of "sex ed" in schools, apparently there is a failure in some quarters to deal with the psychology of courtship.

And here's the thing, we don't know how Shoshana met her lapdog, sorry boyfriend, but I suspect he made uninvited advances to her. It may not have been on the street, but it likely happened. And in that case she decided that she liked him so it was OK. This is also a part of the problem with claims of harassment. It is sometimes entirely dependent upon WHO is doing the unsolicited human contact. If it is some “loser” “creep” or whatever other label placed on males who women do not care for (or don't need something from..or do...) then it is harassment. But if it's the “hot” guy who runs the Central Park lake who gives a wink and says good morning. It's an “OMG I gotta tell my girls” moment.

Lastly I want to deal with this common bullshit I hear from women: "I wasn't dressed up or anything".

[ Shirt and Jeans? So?]

Look. Women dress up to compete with each other. Heterosexual males do not give a good damn if you are wearing booty shorts or sweats and a bandana. While men are somewhat required to signify status via material showing in order to increase the odds of success with women. This is why we see many instances of men who are generally considered "not good looking" with women who could be considered way out of his league. Women are not under the same pressure. Women merely have to be more attractive than the woman next to her to "win". This phenomenon is clearly demonstrated in the video where the "harassers" clearly ignored the other women in the area who were objectively speaking "less attractive" (except ol girl in the grey shirt...dudes...you saw her).

What is also disturbing about the "crew neck shirt and jeans" commentary is that it implies that if women wear a certain outfit that she is then "asking for.." some kind of attention. It should be obvious where this line of thinking can go. I don't think Shoshana wants to take it there.

PS:

The same day I first watched this video i happened to be walking across a NJ college campus where I came upon a dark skinned, well overweight black woman who upon seeing me dropped her head and stared at the ground. I've seen this many times, it is one of the two general reactions I get when I approach women. The other reaction is for them to look off into the air as if they suddenly caught sight of Superman. Generally the more attractive the woman the more likely I'll get the "I just saw Superman" reaction. The less attractive the woman the more likely I get the "oh damn he might talk to me and I'm not worthy" reaction. Every now and then I get a "good morning/afternoon" or "hi". I assume I should consider this harassment since I did not initiate commentary nor "asked for it". But anyway, the point being that there are some [many?] women who LOVE to get even a fraction of the positive attention that Shoshana got.

Conspicuously Absent Info.

So a Mayor in southern California gets shot by his wife, 3 times to the torso and dies of his wounds. The shooting happens during a domestic dispute. The only people reported to go to the hospital are the dead man and the son he was fighting with (who was reported to be intervening).

None of the reports include any statements that the wife had any bruises or had been physically hurt in any way. None of the reports include statements that the wife had a history of physical abuse.

The wife is interrogated by police and allowed to return home. How is it that a man is shot 3 times during an argument (and a physical altercation with a third party) and the known shooter is not arrested?

Does anyone reading this think that given what has been reported that a man similarly situated would have not been arrested and or charged with a homicide?

The wife did not call 911. The wife went to get the gun. Something is not right. Either there are facts in the case that are not being reported on or there is a serious double standard being applied.

Europe Is Not A Country....

RT reporting on India's Mars expedition:

This is India's first mission into such deep space to search for evidence of life on the Red Planet. But the mission's primary objective is technological – if successful, the country will be joining an elite club of nations: the United States, Russia and Europe.

We do realize that Europe is not a nation right? At least not yet. And by the actions of not a few political parties and sentiments of the populations, perhaps never.