Bout of Context

A Modest Proposal

fatmanatee:

…I feel as though there has to be a better solution to saving the world than wearing a “I’m Saving the World” uniform, and after all, the world is bigger than us.  The news agencies are telling me that the gases let out from cows cause as much damage!  If we want to continue eating juicy hamburgers, we need to invest more federal funds in butt plugs for cows.  Cows don’t like the smell of their own excretions anyway, so it kills two birds with one stone.

On the final point, Kevin is right. Cows not only hate their own brand, but won’t feed where they detect even month-old traces of cow-feces. From the landmark entry in the June ‘91 Journal of Chemical Ecology, Cattle Feeding Deterrents Emitted from Cattle Feces :

Cattle avoid grazing forage near their feces on pasture for more than a month…Volatile chemicals isolated from feces 0–35 days after excretion by a cold trap method also inhibited cattle from feeding. These results demonstrated that feces odor is a major cause of the unpalatability of forage around cattle feces…

However, as for greening up their emissions, the solution may not involve plugging the rear end, but putting methane-inhibiting food additives in the front end.

At&T Is The Worst... Except for all the Rest...

Loyal ATT customer, biteofpythias has

“kept with them through all the annoying things they have done, including when they dropped the 9.99 plan they had that expanded your home area to include Canada. And through the change from at&t to cingular and back again. I embarrassingly waited in line for the iphone back in the day. I upgraded to the 3G starting the 2 year at&T clock all over again. I dropped my phone in the crapper the other day and was thankful for the timing as it still kind of works (at least the phone part does) and could get me through to mid june and the new 3GS. Then I hear that I am not eligible for the upgrade to the 3gs unless i pay 218$ more than what others would be eligible for since i am a current customer and my year on the 3g isn’t quite up. I know they are subsidizing these phones, but do they not see that the people who want to stick with them and reset that 2 yr clock are the sort of people they’d want to keep. How many people have been with the same mobile company for 8 yrs? And you don’t recognizgae as a company what little shit like this does to people? I think this is it for me. I’m tempted to just pay out my buy out clause and be done with them. But I want my iphone. it drives me nuts that there is no option. This shitty thing is that even if there were other options now (there probably will be next year), they’d probably not really be any better that at&t.”

Heck, you didn’t even mention ATT’s anticipated delaying of both the newly announced tethering and MMS capabilities! While I feel that my own Verizon->ATT switch has met my realistically throttled expectations - I feel your pain, and am similarly in the $218 early-upgrade morass.

As Macworld’s Dan Moren notes in the current issue, “If there’s one weak point in the iPhone’s seemingly Achillean invulnerability, it’s the tendon named AT&T,” whom they are nevertheless, for reasons technical and contractual, stuck with for the near future.

In a coordinated campaign to leverage ATT frustration TheNation chimed in today with an advertorial email for the liberal do-gooders at Creedo mobile:

“Did you know that AT&T contributed the legal maximum to the Bush-Cheney campaign, twice? I didn’t. But I do know that there’s a cell phone company that shares your progressive values, and I’m hoping if you’re not already a Credo Mobile customer that you’ll quickly become one…”

They’ll cover your early termination fee, discount your service for a year and put a free LG Rumor in your hand. Is that something you might be interested in?