Lets take a look at the angle each of the 3 companies would have in the rumored deal between Apple and Verizon with a CDMA iPhone:

Apple - Apple might sell more iPhones if they added Verizon as a vendor, but at the cost of having to sell, support, refurb, and manufacturer a different SKU of the iPhone, no small task. Would the additional sales offset the cost of the ramp-up, research and development, and marketing effort? Maybe those Dollars could instead be spent on advertising or R&D on new features for their existing SKU. Additionally, most of the worlds wireless carrier use the AT&T aligned  GSM/3G as opposed with the Verizon aligned CDMA / EVDO. Building an EVDO iPhone would not give them the global market penetration that they got with the GSM iPhone. Now, Verizon does have 80 million customers in the US, it comes down to some Apple accountants to decide if the investment will prove cash-positive. My guess would be that they would be more inclined to spend the money on R&D on the existing line.

Verizon – Verizon has something to gain by putting the iPhone in it’s lineup. It would get the ability to keep customers who are in the “have to have it” category for the iPhone. I am one of them, I tossed my Blackberry, paid the $175 cancellation fee and got myself an AT&T iPhone. The one thing that I take away from the experience is that AT&T service is not nearly that of Verizon, and given the choice I would definitely go with Verizon. With that said, Verizon does have 80 million subscribers.  It’s not like they are hurting for business and need a trick up their sleeve in order to draw customers. It would make much more sense for Sprint to try and get the iPhone onto their shrinking network. Verizon can easily place their bets on upcoming Android phones that would be released with the same sort of time frame a CDMA iPhone could be released (considering AT&T’s now exclusive agreement with apple).

AT&T – Considering that the AT&T exclusivity contract with Apple is set to expire at the end of this year, it is almost certain that they are in negotiations with Apple for an extension to that contract. Also consider that I am certainly not the only one who holds disdain for AT&T service like I do.  Of the 3 companies mentioned – AT&T would have a HUGE amount to lose if this sort of deal would go through. I personally would likely leave AT&T for Verizon, given the choice – even considering early cancellation fees associated with the move. Yes, the AT&T network is THAT bad, and the iPhone is just THAT good to make up the difference.

Now, with Apple’s reputation for being hardball negotiators, wouldn’t it be very VERY adventagous for them to spread unconfirmed rumors into the wild suggesting an Apple Verizon iPhone? This would put pressure on AT&T to make a deal that might otherwise be more in their favor. Giving Apple the ability to clean AT&T’s clock. AT&T has much, much more to lose by the Verizon iPhone than either Verizon or Apple have to gain.

In any event, if I were a betting man, and had a dollar to spare – I would bet that AT&T gets another year or two of exclusive iPhones while giving Apple the bank in the process.

She was so nice, the sex was great, always had a great time, it was fantastic… except she had a beard.
Life is full of compromise, DURRRRR. It is okay to be an utter failure, just don’t try to make up for it by blaming it on your mothers uncle – and take some responsibility. I promise it’s your fault.

The Restaurant was fantastic, the meal was delicious and well priced, except the chef likes to set patrons’ hair on fire with blowtorches for fun occasionally.

If you screwed up, admit it. Don’t blame the fact that you knifed someone in the face on your genes, or the attitude that the telephone operator gave you, or the bitter latte you just chugged down from the local liberal-arts coffee house.

This is not limited to just personalities, I constantly see this sort of behavior in sales, and other business departments that are incentivized by producing an good image. The problem with this is that there is an image arms-race and as a result, everyone lies. Talking to a group of potential vendors is like watching apes fight over the last banana, they will say or do anything to get a piece of action – including lying through their teeth and making up for it later with a layer of more lies explaining the previous lies by punting the blame onto someone, or something e’s terriblee.

He was a great friend, always a great laugh and up for a party… except he does like to murder people with swords every now and again.

People should just be honest and up front.  Let the opposite party call it how they see it. I promise you that in the end the recipient of the honesty will always be more satisfied with the information you have delivered as opposed to punting responsibility with a series of excuses.

The Titanic was an epically fantastic ship, except for a small problem with the rudder.

austie jonez: I want a tube that I can fill with salad and use a pushup to get it into my mouth. forking salads all day long is lame
mikey: i have been eating salads lately
mikey: but using the pushup approach would be good
mikey: although i fear i would engineer some way to use it without having to do pushups

austie jonez: not a physical pushup
austie jonez: but like a pushpop
mikey: HAH
austie jonez: I little plunger at the bottom to stuff it out the open side and into my magdog mouth
mikey: genius
austie jonez: I should patent that?
austie jonez: SALAD STUFFER (TM)
mikey: that is one of those awesome magical 1950’s spaceage inventions JUST PUSH, NO FUSS, NO MUSS
austie jonez: it answers the question: how can I make salad more like burrito?
austie jonez: see also: spaghetti stuffer
mikey: who doesn’t have that question about everything?
mikey: because what is a more perfect food delivery medium than a burrito
austie jonez: maybe just make it a stuffer.
austie jonez: stuffs EVERYTHING into your mouth
austie jonez: on the commercial you could stuff an entire thanksgiving meal into it
austie jonez: I’m not sure where I’ll find a hot girl to advertise this on tv though
austie jonez: “ZOMG Salad just exploded into my mouth”
mikey: “hey you – hottie, want to be on tv? i’m a producer”
austie jonez: “you just have to eat salad from my tube”
mikey: “thats way easier, and far less sexual than the usual routine of sucking!”
austie jonez: I could get Aerobee to design it
austie jonez: from space age polymers
austie jonez: I’ll get the nobel for health because I single handedly popularized the salad and ended the diabetes epidemic
mikey: who would of guessed that salad popsicles would be the savior of mankind

Another thing is offices that have no public parking, and im not talking about downtown high rises where space is a serious issue. Here in west LA there is a plethora of buildings that are not stressed for space but charge for parking anyways. Why? because they can. It dawned upon me the other day when I was cleaning out my car and I had like 15 parking receipts. People should just charge the price all-inclusive without tricking people.

I had heard awhile back that in the mid-west some local politician passed an ordinance requiring movie theaters to advertise the actual time that the movie was started, instead of the industry standard of advertising the time that the 30 minutes of commercials start. This is a step in the right direction, kudos.

1. A ‘real’ project / service that is monetized
2. A clusterfuck of a bazillion developers that lose track of the original insight
3. A clearly guided project of a few individuals who spend their spare time developing something out of the goodness of their heart.
4. Total Failure.

In my opinion Options 1, followed by 3 are the best outcomes. If the idea is any good, it will fall into category 1, 2 or 4, if not it will fall into category 3.

The reason open source fails is for one blatent reason: The Community. Recently I have seen several open source communities start to destroy the enviornment that they benefit from. Everyone wants something for free, and the Open Source communities are blatantly at the front of the bread line.

Over and over again I see the real developers driven away from their once beloved projects by people who take personal offense from skilled programmers from making money. Why would anyone want to stick around for that? The second that any developer starts to think about monetizing their creation – the ‘Community’ swoops in and scolds them for being selfish bastards.

With this kind of reaction all developers (me being one of them, sort of ) will always prefer to take their skills to the private industry. Sure, they might contribute here and there to something or another, but their skills can never be fully utilized as they are fully devoted (as they should) to the job that pays the bills, not the one that they take undue criticizing via chat / email / boards from on a daily basis.

If I had a manager that I worked for speak to me the way that I see people treat hard working developers, I’d punch him in the fucking mouth.