Same old stuff, same old gripes, same old everything. It’s been awhile since I’ve added something to this blog – I still can’t get the photos in the header to rotate (Ugh). I’ve been monitoring both the forums and some of the plug-in sites for the new MT4 and no news on all of the problems with it – which is why I’m now using WordPress. However, the problems with the WorkPress “theme” I’m using also haven’t been resolved. If things keep going they way they’ve been for the past few months, I can certainly see that MT will soon be history. I think that they REALLY blew it with version 4 and the lack of response to those problems is indicative of a platform in a lot of trouble. That’s a shame as MT had so much potential.

With regard to other matters, the world is still nuts – I’m not going to go into details now but let’s just say that evil seems to have temporarily prevailed. Whatever happened to honesty, integrity, “doing the right thing,” etcetera? The battles may have been lost but the wars are certainly not over.

I think that we’ve now live in a culture that has changed dramatically for the worst over the past forty years – self-centered, narcissistic socialism seems to be taking over and is having dire consequences for this country. What is right is no longer the standard by which things are measured- what is “good” for the masses (i.e., corporate America) is. One example (of many that I could have used) may be found in a rather unusual place – in reviews of Amazon.com’s latest high-tech item of conspicuous consumption – the “Kindle.” (What a dumb name.)  The “Kindle” is merely an extraordinarily overpriced device that displays electronic versions of books. While the concept is good, Amazon charges an outlandish $400 for the gadget! Then one needs to purchase “books,” subscriptions, and other materials to read on it. While reading electronic documents has some advantages – especially if it is used for pleasure reading – as one can change the font size, it’s allegedly more difficult to lose one’s place in a “book,” and there’s even a dictionary built in that may be used to look up words “on the fly” (yeah, that’s a cool feature), at four hundred dollars, the Kindle is simply an incredible waste of money.

In addition to the cost, the “Kindle” has a lot of other problems – it’s not only extremely ugly but many of the wonderful features of real books are lost. The invention of the printed book is, arguably, one of the greatest of all time. Books are efficient, may be marked up with notes, content may be effectively organized using real book markers or post-it notes, they don’t need batteries, stand up well to all sorts of physical abuse, and may be used for years. They may also be shared, do not require any type of connection to the Internet or wireless services, can be taken to the beach (imagine dropping an overpriced Kindle in the sand). Books may also be sold or traded, have no shelf-life, can be scanned quickly by flipping through pages, often contain content other than text (i.e., pictures, graphs, charts, etc.) , may be scanned and copied, and don’t require a user-manual to operate.

So, what does all of this have to do with the price of beans in Tokyo? Actually, plenty. Reading through the reviews of the Kindle on Amazon.com reveals a lot – in fact, it shows just how arrogant and petty our society has become. There are many reviews that rightly slam the Kindle as a grossly overpriced, poorly designed gadget. Interestingly, there is also another group that is diametrically opposed to any and all criticism. These clowns seem to be obsessed not only with the novelty of the Kindle (sure, it would have some uses – I wouldn’t mind having one if it cost twenty bucks) but they engage in all-out attacks on anyone who complains. Equally interesting is that the attacks are all one-sided – those who support the Kindle attack those against it and, almost never the other way around. Their “arguments” in favor of the Kindle are almost always the same; including:

1. People have “no right” to review the Kindle if they don’t own it.
2. “Opinions” are “reviews” and should be posted elsewhere
3. We’re living in “the ‘twenty-first century’
4. Technology = good, all else = bad

Of course, all of these whines are indicative of those who are really a bunch of morons. One doesn’t need to purchase anything in order to review it – using the same flawed logic, are only those people who personally own 747’s allowed to review it? Obviously not! We’ve also seen numerous cases in which the above flawed arguments have been used in the past. For example, I very clearly remember argument that CD roms were going to be the panacea for all of the world’s problems – especially in education. CD roms were going magically transfer knowledge to anyone that used them. That example, of course, was (and still is) absurd. A CD rom is merely a storage device that holds a lot of information. CD roms don’t “teach” anything, they don’t participate in the learning process, they don’t alter the manner in which new information is retained, etc. Again, CD roms are just a different way of storing content. 

The asinine argument about “living in the twentieth century” is also absurd – what does that calendar have to do the need for people to behave in a different manner? The answer to that, of course, is also obvious – the calendar has nothing to do with behavior. The acquisition of knowledge is not dependent upon the medium in which it is presented, it is determined, rather, by how we are “wired” physiologically. The passage of time, clearly, has nothing to do with how we are supposed to “learn.” In fact, a good argument might be that it is highly likely that humans learn today in the same manner as they did two thousand years ago – through trial and error, focused study, rote memorization, experience, etc., etc.

The most disturbing part; however, is how arrogant and idiotic these Kindle-loving morons really are – just because someone has the “audacity” to criticize a new gadget is enough to set off the ire of techno-socialists how think that the world needs to change because corporate America is selling a new toy. What a sad, sad state of affairs.