“I think the Internet is the most dangerous thing invented since the atomic bomb”

Riiiiight. But it gets even better. He busts out the completely flawed statement building off the previous saying:

“It’s destroyed the music business. It’s going to destroy the movie business.”

Sorry to break it to ya John, but the music industry destroyed the music industry. Dicking around with Napster back in the day instead of learning from the possibilities as well as taking a very hands off approach to anything digital early on is what set them up for failure. It is the music industries constant failures in giving consumers what they want that has led to their downfall. No amount of rigged “studdies”, press releases, or even blabbering washed up celebrities like you can change that.

With that said, sticking with the whole anti-digital rhetoric, Mellencamp dished out criticism on mp3 players/digital downloads, comparing remastered CDs and mp3 downloads as night and day differences. Specifically,

you could barely even recognize it as the same song. You could tell it was those guys singing, but the warmth and quality of what the artist intended for us to hear was so vastly different.

Yet again, a digital retard and backwards thinking has been is showing how ignorant he is. Here’s a hint John — it’s called FLAC. Google it.

Source:
Gizmodo
Reuters

In the end, someone in Comcast’s customer service department managed to find one of 3 people with any common sense inside the company, choosing to waive the associated fees. Just kidding — Comcastic-my-ass only relented when a local reporter decided to make them the topic of the evening news.

And that right there folks is how you take home the gold for America’s worst company. Be sure to check out the video below.

**BTW, if you’re going to knock us for pointing this out after a resolution has been met, let us remind you that the mere fact we have to even talk about this goes to prove how fucked up this company is. Enjoy the show.

Video

Consumerist

It really sickens me how much this country is becoming a nanny state. From surveillance cameras popping up everywhere to bullshit laws and rules that stand in stark contrast to basic liberties and freedoms.

Today, we’re looking at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Bergen County, New Jersey. It seems the principle there has a bit of a fear (and inability to grasp how fundamentally important) concerning the internet, by sending out a letter to all parents asking them to help him kick their kids off of social networking sites and hawk over every single text message they send and receive.

Just how sick and short sighted is the principal, Anthony Orsini? Have a look for yourself…

Below is the letter he sent to every parent of the school’s 700 students.

Dear BF Community,

In 2002 when I arrived in Ridgewood Facebook did not exist, Youtube did not exist, and MySpace was barely in existence. Formspring (one of the newest internet scourges, a site meant simply to post cruel things about people anonymously) wasn’t even in someone’s mind.

In 2010 social networking sites have now become commonplace, and technology use by students is beyond prevalent.

It is time for every single member of the BF Community to take a stand!

There is absolutely no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site!

Let me repeat that – there is absolutely, positively no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site! None.

5 of the last 8 parents who we have informed that their child was posting inappropriate things on Facebook said their child did not have an account. Every single one of the students had an account.

3 Students yesterday told a guidance counselor that their parents told them to close their accounts when the parents learned they had an account. All three students told their parents it was closed. All three students still had an account after telling their parents it was closed.

Most students are part of more than one social networking site.

Please do the following: sit down with your child (and they are just children still) and tell them that they are not allowed to be a member of any social networking site. Today!

Let them know that you will at some point every week be checking their text messages online! You have the ability to do this through your cell phone provider.

Let them know that you will be installing Parental Control Software so you can tell every place they have visited online, and everything they have instant messaged or written to a friend. Don’t install it behind their back, but install it!

Over 90% of all homework does not require the internet, or even a computer. Do not allow them to have a computer in their room, there is no need.

Know that they can text others even if their phone doesn’t have texting capability, either through the computer or through their Ipod touch.

Have a central “docking station” preferably in your bedroom, where all electronics in the home get charged each night, especially anything with a cell or wifi capability (Remember when you were in high school and you would sneak the phone into your bedroom at midnight to talk to you girlfriend or boyfriend all night – now imagine what they can do with the technology in their rooms).

If your son or daughter is attacked through one of these sites or through texting – immediately go to the police! Insist that they investigate every situation. Also, contact the site and report the attack to the site – they have an obligation to suspend accounts or they are liable for what is written.

We as a school can offer guidance and try to build up any student who has been injured by the social networking scourge, but please insist the authorities get involved.

For online gaming, do not allow them to have the interactive communication devices. If they want to play Call of Duty online with someone from Seattle, fine, they don’t need to talk to the person.

The threat to your son or daughter from online adult predators is insignificant compared to the damage that children at this age constantly and repeatedly do to one another through social networking sites or through text and picture messaging.

It is not hyperbole for me to write that the pain caused by social networking sites is beyond significant – it is psychologically detrimental and we will find out it will have significant long term effects, as well as all the horrible social effects it already creates.

I will be more than happy to take the blame off you as a parent if it is too difficult to have the students close their accounts, but it is time they all get closed and the texts always get checked.

I want to be clear, this email is not anti-technology, and we will continue to teach responsible technology practices to students. They are simply not psychologically ready for the damage that one mean person online can cause, and I don’t want any of our students to go through the unnecessary pain that too many of them have already experienced.

Some people advocate that the parents and the school should teach responsible social networking to students because these sites are part of the world in which we live.

I disagree, it is not worth the risk to your child to allow them the independence at this age to manage these sites on their own, not because they are not good kids or responsible, but because you cannot control the poor actions of anonymous others.

Learn as a family about cybersafety together at wiredsafety.org for your own knowledge. It is a great site. But then do everything I asked in this email – because there really is no reason a child needs to have one of these accounts.

Please take action in your on home today.

Sincerely,
Anthony Orsini
Principal, BFMS”

First off, Anthony, you’re a fuckin’ quack. Second, there are plenty of reasons to for middle school children to be on social networking sites, and (Gasps!) the advancement in technology and how we communicate. It’s called…being social, talking to friends, playing games. On the game front, more than half the games on Facebook are aimed at middle school aged kids. Taking communication into account, there are plenty of younger children who keep in contact with distant relatives and friends via social networking that is many times easier and more enveloping than a simple phone call or occasional letter.

All we’re seeing is just another example of your typical knee-jerk, nanny state reaction that is destroying society in this country. A few bad (and very unfortunate) things happen and everyone goes off the deep end getting ban happy with anything and everything remotely related to the original incident.

Perhaps even more troubling than the call for an outright social networking ban is the call to monitor any and all texts the kids send and receive. Now, I can understand and do in fact support monitoring your kids and knowing what they do, but subjecting them to demeaning and trust destroying acts of spying does much more harm than good. If you raise a kid like they’re a liar and a thief, they’re going to turn into a liar and a thief. Killing any and all trust your child could have in you negates any small benefit that heavy surveillance would bring.

Anthony Orsini is a dinosaur in the digital age. Even more so, he’s an idiot and a complete moron. While he isn’t “requiring” that parents talk to their kids about his communistic ideologies, the fact that we’re even talking about this is disturbing enough.

These older people that are learning to adapt to technology instead of growing up with it like us 30 and younger people have been need to realize that you cannot safety proof the world. Bad thing will always happen. And if it ever comes to a point where nothing bad is possible to happen, life will no longer be worth living because we’ll be contained in a bubble, sheltered from the very thing we call life.

It’s people like this that need to be fired and not have access to young people’s mailable minds. If technological advancement were based in this moron’s ideas, we’d be all giggly over a concept as simple as a wheel.

Consider this a call for Anthony Orsini’s resignation and apology for his blunt stupidity.

Drudge Report > WCBSTV

Seriously Apple, WTF?! You reject dictionary apps because little Johnny might search for a naughty word yet you approve apps such as Baby Shaker. Now you’ve stooped to the ultimate in absolute stupidity and leaves me wondering where you find these morons that run the App Store approval process. Why the flaming? Do I really need to go into any greater detail on the image above? The ebook above is Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kempf” — his “bible” if you will, full of his murderous and inhumane polices. Apparently supporting genocide is high up on Apple’s list. It’s bad enough that someone didn’t double check this app and think, “hmm, a pro-Nazi app, probably not a good idea”. What’s even worse though is that an app titled “Someecards”, a humorous app that made fun of various public figures and celebrites — past and present — was rejected. Humor doesn’t appear to be “in the cards” for Apple however as one particular card making fun of Hitler was one of the main reasons the app was rejected. The more politically correct response: “It ridiculed public figures”. Ridiculing a murder off limits. Pushing his hateful and murderous ideas? Awesome, no problem. So little of a problem in fact that Apple has only given this app a 9+ rating. WTF? Start ‘um young I guess. Mind you, this is the same group of individuals who reject f’n scholarly tools such as a simple dictionary app for having words like shit, damn, fuck, and so on? Wow. Classy Apple.

I haven’t written about any stupid app rejections or App Store processes in a while because they were mostly the same basic things over and over that we have already seen. app called “Someecards” that happened to have a particular card that criticized Hitler shows that the app approval process is a complete and utter joke. Should they all be fired? Well, that would be a start. Perhaps hiring some people that aren’t completely incompetent would help no?

In the end though, I shouldn’t be too hard on those ever so intelligent app approvers as the Mein Kempf app was written in Spanish. And the approvers surely couldn’t have understood that or hired someone who speaks Spanish. No sir, they’re on top of their app approvals. Speed, efficiency, and developer feedback are Apple’s top priority. Just ask the Trillian iPhone app developer…..

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