Forget Richards, Rodman, or Schmidt. Maybe It’s Tim Cook Who Should Go To North Korea

This picture (Tuaw) says it all.  Maybe Tim Cook should have been the one to visit North Korea all along to talk the “Great Leader” down from his cliff.

Scary Japanese Horro Movies Over Done? Here's Another That Looks Very Promising

Source:  Bloody Disgusting.

It's been a while since I've seen a horror movie from Japan or an American reboot of one.  Simply, because I'm a chicken and without people to watch it with, well, I think that kinda says a lot about other chickens I call my friends.

Here's a new one from the maker of Ringu, the original Japanese version of the US movie The Ring, called The Complex.

Suffice to say, when you hear scratching noises coming from in your bedroom wall from the apartment next door where an old creepy man lives, you get the frak out of there.  Forget your gears and the security deposit.  It ain't worth it.

Enjoy!

Fake Pokemon Movie Trailer Has Me Thinking A Live Action One Would Rock!

Source:  Mashable.

Here is a fake Pokemon trailer for a fake live action movie called "Snap".  Again, it's not a real movie but what if Nintendo does one day do a live-action Pokemon movie?  Yes, I would be lining up for sure.

You don't see Ash and company here but you do see some Pokemons.

Help FBI Track This Child Predator Down, Human Trafficking

Last week, news surfaced that Facebook allowed a video showing the act of abusing a child on its sites and in user profiles for a good long while before public outrage on Twitter go Zucker and company to act.  Well, here's a post from NBC News about a man who produced a lot of despicable videos of children.

So far, the FBI has only one picture of this person.  There is very little else anyone knows about this man.  If anyone knows anything, you can reach authorities at 866-347-2423 or visit www.ICE.gov/tips.

Meanwhile, there's a church near where I live that on more than one weekend provided information on human trafficking.  Usually, I find out too late.  If there is such a group near where you live and they provide information on how to combat exploitation of people, particularly children, I urge you to be proactive.

Human exploitation and modern day slavery isn't something we ordinarily hear about but with social media and the Internet, we are learning more and more about it.

And folks, it's everywhere even in America.

Killing And Then Suicide: Nut Jobs' Easy Way Out And Their Private Wars Against Society

There is a new report (CNN) out today about Newtown mass murderer.  The motives why the murderer, which I will not dignify by mentioning his name, ended the beautiful lives of twenty children and six of their caretakers remain unclear. However, we can truly get into the minds of someone like this even if he was still around to explain it to me?

Of all the deaths resulting from this kind of mass killing, it is unimaginable that we as a society are willing to listen to these murderers’ explanations why they did it.  Most of them are cowards because they would commit suicide and rob us all of justice.

It’s an easy way out for them.  We can only assume that these deranged individuals are at war against society.  That is the only way to see it and that is likely how they see it as well.  Society against them.

The Newtown murderer took less than five minutes to commit his atrocity at the elementary school.  That’s 300 seconds.  What takes five minutes to finish a task for you?

Microwaving a burrito.
A leisurely half mile jog.
A shower.
To make coffee.
Change out of a pajamas into school clothes.
To grab a backpack, put on shoes, and head to the car for school.
To get out of the car and greet school mates before running into the classroom.
Time it takes for a teacher to settle down the class to start the day.

But to imagine spending more than 150 bullets in that time?  Stalking victims?  Ending 26 individual futures?  The closest thing I can come up with is war.  And in war, you make plans before you execute it.  And that’s what the Newtown guy did was just that.  He waged war on us all.  And many others like him before and those who will inevitably follow to commit their own mass murders.

And then cowardly end their own lives to avoid facing the consequences.

As a society, the answer isn’t arming ourselves as some would have it and end up with Western-style shootouts.  Seriously, do these people really want that to be happening on the streets of America and in malls and schools. Once you get past the absurdity of that, you come down to only one solution.

You try to diffuse a situation before it becomes a state of war.  And there is no one easy solution. No silver bullet like arming oneself for a public engagement Hollywood style.  There are probably many difficult and imperfect ones.

Social: Facebook To Put Ads In Timeline Starting With Desktops

Source:  Inside Facebook.

Looks like Timeline on Facebook will get more crowded and cumbersome.  Not to mention annoying as FB looks to put ads there to extra a few more dollars in its pocket.  I figure in order to do this, there will be some friendly eavesdropping on some going-ons between you and your friends.

Obviously, there are some issues that go beyond simple snooping of our lives.  We have ads in our mail for years and they already "listen" in.

The scary thing is that given the Timeline is where most users see when they log in and where they get the bulk of the updates, this is going to give Facebook the key to the kingdom and in ways that no one has envisioned before.

Of course, we knew this day would come.  All those personal information in a vast database that for all to see.  To the highest bidder.

So far, it'll be on the desktop to start but it'll eventually move onto just about any other platform that Facebook is allowed on.

Mobile: Atlantic Wire Does A "China" In Hit Piece Against T-Mobile's New Plans

This is a horribly written article from the Atlantic Wire comparing AT&T and T-Mobile's new no-contract rates.  We’ll go through the errors and come to the conclusion that the writer or even the AW is bending over backward to make T-Mobile look bad and AT&T, probably a big sponsor for the site, look good.

The gist of the post is about how T-Mobile’s new plan is bad compared to AT&T for users and even trying to point out that T-Mobile could end up costing users more.  Let’s start shredding this post apart piece by piece.

First, even if the numbers used by the writer is correct, paying a bit more to get out of the thumb of AT&T’s draconian domain is worth it.  That in and of itself is a great advertising tagline.  Fortunately for folks looking at the T-Mobile plans, it’s actually cheaper to go with T-Mobile and AT&T's plans are actually more expensive.

Second, the numbers used by AW are wrong because while they’re comparing the same device, an iPhone 5, the device can be anything others.  A Blackberry or Galaxy S 3 which both carriers have.  So the cost of the device doesn't matter.  It’s the plans.  And this is where the writer is trying to make AT&T look better.

The writer used AT&T’s lowest $40 unlimited 450 min plan to compared with T-Mobile’s $50 unlimited talk and text plan.  The writer should have used the equivalent $70 plan from AT&T.  On top of that, the writer should have also included the $20 unlimited texting plan as well on top of whatever AT&T plan a subscriber picks.  The omission of the texting plan alone blatantly showed that the post was either paid for by AT&T or something far more sinister.

Had the writer used AT&T rates that are closer to what T-Mobile offers, it would come out to $2360 for two years for the 450 minutes plan with texting and $3080 for the unlimited talk plan.  Using the writer’s $60 plan to get the 2 GB data and the total cost of $2020 for T-Mobile, that’s still lower than AT&T’s lowest plan by $340 and a whopping $1060 less than AT&T’s unlimited talk plan over two years.

Okay, let’s take this a step further.  Let’s go with T-Mobile’s unlimited $70 talk, text, and data.  That’s true unlimited data which AT&T doesn’t offer.  That cost comes out to $2350 for 24 months – beating AT&T”s 2 GB with unlimited talk plan by $730.

Let’s go even a step further and add more data on top of AT&T’s unlimited talk plan.  AT&T doesn’t offer unlimited data because it knows that its data network is crap and it knows that we know it.  But it does offer incremental higher data allotments with higher costs.  Again, nothing unlimited.

So, to come as close as we can to T-Mobile’s $70 unlimited data, voice, and texting, we would have to pay AT&T $70 for unlimited voice, $20 for unlimited texting, and $50 to get 5 GB of data.  Again, AT&T doesn’t offer unlimited data.  That total comes out to $140.

For 24 months, the subscriber gets jacked $3560 by AT&T to come as close as possible to what a T-Mobile user would have to pay.  I’ll make you do the math to figure out the difference.

That’s only the cost comparisons that matter, which the writer worked hard to avoid to make AT&T stand out.

However, the last point is the most important of all.  Regardless of whatever plan you get from T-Mobile and savings aside, the user isn't beholden to AT&T.  Again, the skewed comparison the Atlantic Wire writer tried so hard to keep users on it.  This point is pretty much the same as the first one I made above.

Yes, being freed of contracts and free of AT&T is just that important to me.

Now, this would be a perfect place to end the post.  But I also like to point out that even the writer's $1916 total doesn't make sense at all.

Note:  While you can argue that I've got an ax to grind against AT&T, that may be true but the numbers themselves don't lie.