The Eric Wroolie Blog

Overpass Experiences

Metro, Mountain Lion, and the Snowballing Economy

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I feel like I’m the only person in the world who does not like the look of Metro style apps from Windows Phone and Windows 8. I don’t like the simplistic large font with basic colours. I prefer something with more depth. But, the economic beast has to feed itself and we can’t keep the same stuff all the time, so we are moving to Metro.

Apple unveiled its Mountain Lion OS yesterday. I didn’t watch the keynote, but I did see a lot of people talking about it on Twitter. Apple fans were gushing all over the new OS—no criticisms. When you’re a fan, I guess, you can’t criticise. People on the other side—on the Windows side—are gushing over Windows 8 and Metro too.

There’s something very strange about the world we live in where the economy has to be growing or it is failing. If we are not selling, then we are stagnating. Of course, when we have all we need, there is no reason to buy. So, the economy needs Metro. But we don’t need Metro. They need to convince us that it is necessary.

I know it makes me sound old, but I think about the big TV we had when I was growing up. It wasn’t just a TV—it was a piece of furniture. It was huge with a rotary channel changer—but it was a big investment. We had it for at least 10 years that I can remember. If it broke, we could get it repaired.

Now, we needed to go for the flat screen TVs when they came out (they were far better than the old TV Set of the past). Then we needed digital tv. Then we needed to get rid of that piece of junk and get HD. Now, they need to push 3D. We already have a TV—but with that attitude this recession will go on forever.

Was it always this way? I know we never needed economic growth to be this strong before. Or is it exponential? Has it snowballed so much that there is no way we can keep it up. We need this recession. We need the economy to slow down so we can regulate our buying habits.

Because I don’t want Windows 8 with Metro.

Virgin Broadband Reliability

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I use Virgin Broadband’s top 50Mb cable package.  I do so much work on the internet that I think the cost is justified. It’s lightening fast.

But it is not very reliable.

As I write this, it is 5:10 in the morning and the internet is down again (I will have to post it later).  I’ve been up for over an hour, and I’ve done the routines of restarting the router and switching the cable modem off and on.  I would be on the phone to tech support if it weren’t so early and I would wake up the rest of the house.

I have times like this every few weeks.  I constantly have to reboot the router.  Sometimes it works, but other times I just have to wait.  I believe in moving everything to the cloud – except for this.  No email, no net, no Spotify.  During baseball season, it means I can’t watch Padre games in the early morning hours (I can watch San Diego night games at 3:30am in England).

I know some people who live in remote areas where they have no internet or very basic dial up service.  It’s almost unthinkable now. 

Even people with 2Mb broadband have a terrible experience.  Back when I had 8Mb Orange broadband, the performance was terrible in the evening.  I don’t get that with Virgin.  I love it.  If only it didn’t go down so often.

If you are considering Virgin Broadband.  This is something you may want to think about.  Of course, it could be a faulty switch in my area or something more local like that.  If you have Virgin, I’d be interested in the experiences you’ve had.

I’m going to a client site today.  Hopefully, it will be running again by the time I get home.

All this Huck Finn business

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On my new Kindle, I’ve been reading a lot of Mark Twain.  I bought the new autobiography that came out in August and it’s great (although very long—I will be reading it for a while) and have also recently read “The Innocents Abroad”.  I read quite of few of Mark Twain’s works in the past.  I don’t read fiction (or even autobiography) very often, so it’s been a real treat to not think about technology or self-improvement for a while.

We had to read Huckleberry Finn in high school.  It had the n-word.  We had to know that “that’s how people talked back then.” 

There’s a big controversy over removing the word in newer editions of the book.  It is being held as political correctness gone amok.  I know the book is often banned because of that word.

But, to be honest, I don’t see the problem changing it.  That word is not what made the book a success.  If it makes it easier for the single black child in an all-white suburban classroom to get through his day, then great.

As a teenager, I also read the “Count of Monte Cristo” and I’m pretty sure the language of that book was changed too (out of sensitivity to the fact that I don’t speak French).  It was still a great book.