Archive for category Geek Courage

Kevin Smith will not go gentle from that good flight. [NC-17]

Posted by RickMacMerc in Geek Courage, Geek Faith, Geek Justice, Geek Pride, Geek Wrath, Public Service Announcement, Social Networking, Twitter on February 13, 2010

The following is a series of tweets issued by writer/director Kevin Smith earlier today after being removed from a Southwest Airlines jet due to his weight shortly after having been seated. Keep in mind, these messages went out to Mr. Smith’s 1,637,505 Twitter followers as the events unfolded. Be warned, the language is strong1 . Lesson to be learned: the age of treating customers (any customers) unfairly has come to an end—the injustices you have whispered to someone behind closed doors will be tweeted (and retweeted) from the rooftops—everybody has a platform.2

Dear @SouthwestAir – I know I’m fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?

Dear @SouthwestAir, I flew out in one seat, but right after issuing me a standby ticket, Oakland Southwest attendant Suzanne (wouldn’t give

last name) told me Captain Leysath deemed me a “safety risk”. Again: I’m way fat… But I’m not THERE just yet. But if I am, why wait til my

bag is up, and I’m seated WITH ARM RESTS DOWN. In front of a packed plane with a bunch of folks who’d already I.d.ed me as “Silent Bob.”

So, @SouthwestAir, go fuck yourself. I broke no regulation, offered no “safety risk” (what, was I gonna roll on a fellow passenger?). I was

wrongly ejected from the flight (even Suzanne eventually agreed). And fuck your apologetic $100 voucher, @SouthwestAir. Thank God I don’t

embarrass easily (bless you, JERSEY GIRL training). But I don’t sulk off either: so everyday, some new fuck-you Tweets for @SouthwestAir.

Wanna tell me I’m too wide for the sky? Totally cool. But fair warning, folks: IF YOU LOOK LIKE ME, YOU MAY BE EJECTED FROM @SOUTHWESTAIR.

Via @byrneification “save the anger for SModcast” Believe it, Son. @SouthwestAir? You fucked with the wrong sedentary processed-foods eater!

(1/2) @pigz “I know several people bigger then u who have flown on other airlines” I saw someone bigger than me on THAT flight! But I wasn’t

(2/2) about to throw a fellow Fatty under the plane as I’m being profiled. But he & I made eye contact, & he was like “Please don’t tell…”

Dear @SouthwestAir, I’m on another one of your planes, safely seated & buckled-in again, waiting to be dragged off in front of the normies.

And, hey? @SouthwestAir? I didn’t even need a seat belt extender to buckle up. Somehow, that shit fit over my “safety concern”-creating gut.

Via @bogo_lode “Maybe you should organize a boycott” A boycott of one. This is my last Southwest flight. Hopefully by choice.

Hey @SouthwestAir! Look how fat I am on your plane! Quick! Throw me off! http://twitpic.com/1340gw

Hey @SouthwestAir! Sometimes, the arm rests are up because THE PEOPLE SITTING THERE ALREADY PUT THEM UP; NOT BECAUSE THEY “CAN’T GO DOWN.”

The @SouthwestAir Diet. How it works: you’re publicly shamed into a slimmer figure. Crying the weight right off has never been easier!

Via @mmm_cereal “my dad’s bigger than you & flies southwest all the time. some1 just wanted to say they were a dick to a celeb” Celeb? Me?!

Hey @SouthwestAir! I’ve landed in Burbank. Don’t worry: wall of the plane was opened & I was airlifted out while Richard Simmons supervised.

(1/2) Hey @SouthwestAir? Fuck making it right for me just ’cause I have a platform. I sat next to a big girl who was chastised for not buy-

(2/2) ing an extra ticket because “all passengers deserve their space.” Fucking flight wasn’t even full! Fuck your size-ist policy. Rude…

Southwest Airlines’ tweeter has kept up with Kevin, and here are a few of the posts found at @SouthwestAir:

@ThatKevinSmith hey Kevin! I’m so sorry for your experience tonight! Hopefully we can make things right, please follow so we may DM!

Hey folks – trust me, I saw the tweets from @ThatKevinSmith I’ll get all the details and handle accordingly! Thanks for your concerns!

@jdickey no, unfortunately…this is the real deal. Silent Bob is striking back.

I read every single tweet that comes into this account, and take every tweet seriously. We’ll handle @thatkevinsmith issue asap.

I’ve read the tweets all night from @thatkevinsmith – He’ll be getting a call at home from our Customer Relations VP tonight.

I have every confidence that this situation will work out amicably but it does go to show you how fast a bad customer service move can do serious damage with the connectivity of social networking…wildfire.

  1. but tame by Kevin Smith standards [↩]
  2. and if they don’t, they probably know somebody who does [↩]

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Why I’m excited about the Apple iPad …and why I bought a Kindle DX

Posted by RickMacMerc in Geek Courage, Geek Faith, Geek Hope, Geek Lust, Geek Pride, Stuff I Dig on January 31, 2010

Lately, I have become a bit of a voracious reader; keeping a stack of almost thirty books on the go at a time. I’m not bragging. I actually think I may have a bit of a problem. But that’s fodder for another post.

Anyway.

I’ve been dying for a book reading device that would make my books easier to bring with me and access on the go. I love to read at my local Starbucks but don’t like to stick to just one book and bringing a stack around with me makes the baristas compelled to tell me that I’m not permitted to stay quite that long. “We do close, you know!”

So a book reader was in order, but with all the buzz about the upcoming Apple tablet announcement, I thought it prudent to wait until January 27th to make my decision. That evening, after reading the announcement coverage, I ordered an Amazon Kindle DX, it arrived less than 2 days later and I couldn’t be happier with it.

Unlike the Apple iPad, it is not backlit or glossy which is a huge plus for book reading in my opinion. I look at a backlit LCD all day at work and my eyes get strained. I need a light to read by, but I don’t need it to be emanating from the device. The Kindle also offers wireless access via Amazon’s global Whispernet as part of the purchase of the device—not something else I have to add to my already bloated cellular bill. That alone is magic. And the Kindle, being an Amazon product, has access to a wide selection of titles to read.1

You might assume from this that I’m not a big fan of the Apple iPad. Well, you’re right. At the moment, I’m not.

But, in the case of the iPad, the “one more thing…” that was once a giddily anticipated staple of Steve Jobs’ keynote addresses is a powerful one. The one more thing here is the same thing that made the iPhone so compelling. It’s not the touch screen, the accelerometer, the wifi or 3G access…it’s all of those things plus one very powerful component whose impact cannot be underestimated…

…developers.

We have only seen the iPad with a handful of desktop-style apps…ones that we already have on our iPhones and iPod touches…expanded and made somewhat more glorious on the bigger screen. And, in spite of how Mr. Jobs said it as if we were about to have our eyes opened to a new world, we already know what it’s like to have the internet in our hands.2 But what we haven’t seen is what the iPad can do in the hands of the enormous and shockingly talented community of developers Apple has attracted.

I saw the announcement on January 27th hoping to see something that would solve the logistical problems of my reading addiction and was disappointed. That is not to say that I won’t be getting an Apple iPad. I fear that may by unavoidable. I might be compelled to, not by Steve Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field, but by the possibilities for this device as seen through the talented and innovative minds of what will no doubt be a formidable Apple iPad developer army.

You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

  1. the only problem here is that 40% of my reading is rather obscure—the very “long tail” that has made Amazon so successful—and many of those titles are not yet available for the Kindle…still, there’s lots to choose from [↩]
  2. Heck, with the iPhone, I know what it’s like to have the internet in my pants! [↩]

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Give your iPhone apps some love

Posted by RickMacMerc in Geek Charity, Geek Courage, Geek Faith, Geek Hope, Geek Justice, Geek Pride, Public Service Announcement on October 4, 2009

Please rate before deleting.

This image was adjusted using Best Camera…an iPhone app I just gave a five star rating

I’ve said this many places before and I’m not the first to say this: the iPhone App Store rating system is deeply flawed.

The iPhone OS never asks you to review the apps you use. You can enjoy an app for months, using it many times a day and have it enrich your life but at no time will the iPhone OS pop up an alert asking you to review it. That’s good, actually; it would get annoying to have all those alerts reminding you how much you use applications. It might even deter you from using apps! The iPhone App Store has no way for developers to offer demo software, so it has all but eliminated “nagware” on the iPhone. Having the iPhone OS bother you for reviews for applications would make the whole operating system a nag. We don’t need that.

So the iPhone OS never asks you to review apps…well, there is one circumstance when it will ask you for a review—when you act to delete an application from your iPhone.

I hope it’s obvious why that’s a problem.

Imagine if the only people asked to review movies were the people who storm out before the car chase. These are people who have decided the film is not worth another minute of their time: how do you think they’re going to review it?

This doesn’t mean that everyone who deletes an app is going to give it a one star rating—some won’t give any rating at all—but it makes it very likely that those that do give ratings will give very low ratings. It means that the only people being polled for their opinion on any given app are the people who decided that app has no place on their iPhone1. Free apps are especially ripe for this since they are often viewed as disposable and undervalued.

YOUR ASSIGNMENT

Here’s the mission with which I charge you: grab your iPhone (or iPod touch) and systematically go through each application you have purchased and kept on your device, search for it on iTunes in the iPhone App Store and give it a five star rating.

That’s right: five stars …like this… ★★★★★

Do all these apps deserve five stars just because you haven’t deleted them? Of course not. But they also don’t deserve every one star rating they got from the people who didn’t understand what they were downloading and got irate and vindictive when they deleted it either. This action may counteract those ratings. I can also understand if you don’t want to give the high five to apps you’ve only just recently purchased; you might not keep those…who knows.

Developers work really hard on these apps and they are at the mercy of the users to review them honestly and fairly. Once a negative review is posted, there’s not a lot a developer can do to defend his app. A user can say pretty much anything against an application and the developer has no way of rebutting it. Even after the application has been updated and has had bug fixes applied, the negative reviews remain on its record in iTunes—there’s no forgiveness!

So I think it’s fair for you to give all the apps you store on you iPhone a five star rating—all of them, across the board. The deck is stacked against the developers rating-wise so the only solution, aside from Apple fixing the way apps are reviewed, is to take matters into our own hands and almost “over revere” the apps we keep.

After reading the above, the second part of the mission should be a given if it’s not already a habit: vow to never casually give one star ratings to apps you delete. If they are detrimental to the human race, fraudulent or dangerous—fine, give them a one star rating and an honest review stating your case. If you just didn’t like the app but it worked as advertised, give it a fair review or no review at all. If you have a problem with the way an app is working (or not working) email the developer and ask for their help before posting a review.

I’m taking on this mission myself…it’s going to take me a lot of time, but I think it has to be done.

Thank you for reading.

  1. To be absolutely fair, I did give a five star rating to one app I deleted…because it was so good it was distracting me from things I needed to do and making me wear down my battery by playing it [↩]

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