This morning, Cox cable subscribers may have noticed that KAKE News went off the air. Many are angry at Cox for the missing content, but I submit that KAKE, via their parent company Gray Television, played chicken and lost.
Consider this: Your favorite baseball / football / basketball player on your favorite team decides he needs more money. He gives the team an ultimatum: increase my salary or I'm not playing. Who would you view as the irrational party in this situation?
The player, right?
That's exactly what's happening here. KAKE feels it needs something in the area of 400% more money from Cox to air their content. While KAKE's general manager denies this figure, he admits he really doesn't know what the actual figure is.
But how about this: KAKE, an ABC affiliate, is a channel that comes included on Cox's most basic cable package. In other words, it's a high-value channel because it carries some of the most popular TV shows as well as local news. It's TV programming you legitimately want to watch, and Gray TV knows it.
It gets better. Or worse, I suppose, depending on how you look at it.
KAKE is such a high-value channel, in fact, that it's actually available to all of you -- right now -- for free. All you need is a digital TV (DTV) antenna. They're $21 at Wal-Mart and $18 on Amazon, and KAKE isn't the only channel you'll get for free using one of these.
Why is Cox resisting forking over the extra money?
I'm purely speculating here, but consider this. If Gray Television strong arms Cox into paying an exorbitantly higher rate -- whether it's actually 400% or not is irrelevant -- they're opening the door for other content providers to come calling for more money. Viacom-owned stations like BET, MTV, CBS, VH1 and plenty of others channels you frequently watch could play chicken with Cox, holding hostage the shows you want with your cable bill as the ransom.
It isn't just Cox who resists these type of rate hikes. Dish Network, DirecTV, AT&T U-Verse, and other cable and satellite providers all have to deal with similar annual rate negotiations. Often times, the increases are minimal, and you as the customer are never the wiser. Cases like this illustrate greed on part of the programming company -- KAKE and Gray Television -- who are likely trying to cover costs for God-only knows what by extorting money out of the very companies who actually put their content on the air.
While I understand that inflation persists in this economy and price increases (along with wage increases, overhead, and other expenses do rise year to year), I challenge you to find ANY such cost that KAKE (and Gray TV) has incurred that's gone up 400% in one year.
So before you pick up the phone and yell at Cox and complain about how you always pay your bill on time and they're shorting you what you're paying for, consider contacting Gray Television first, and demand that they provide a reasonable rate hike instead of this insanity. You can find their contact information here.
I've backpacked 3 continents, 8 countries, 25+ U.S. states, and moved out of Kansas for the first time in my life. I've spent the entire year working freelance for four different companies, sometimes from home, but often from the road. Coffee shops, truck stops, public libraries, bars and restaurants, co-working spaces, airports, bus terminals, a ferry in Vietnam, a hostel in Cambodia, a backpacker lodge in New Zealand, a beach in Puerto Rico -- these places have all been my "office" at some point this year.
And I've loved it. I've found a lot of much-needed clarity in life. I've completely rewritten my list of priorities. It's true what they say -- none of us are getting any younger, and time waits for no one.
Now I'm ready for the next challenge, and I'm going all-in.
I'm thrilled to say that in January, I'm starting a new role at Insightpool, a startup based here in Atlanta, as their social media manager.
I've had plenty to keep me busy this year, so when this opportunity came up, I was intrigued and jumped right on it. I've met a few people there before now, and their company culture is contagious. Spend just a few minutes talking with any of them and it's impossible not to be excited about where the company is headed. This is the first job I remember ever being this excited about.
I'm heading back to Kansas for the holidays and then returning to Atlanta to dive right in. There's much to be done.
Sprint’s latest promotion, which begins tomorrow, offers current Verizon and AT&T customers a deal worth 50% off their current monthly phone bill. It seems straight forward enough, right? I wanted to take a closer look, and I’ll warn your now: this post is a long one, so hear me out.
Here’s how it works:
Bring in your latest Verizon or AT&T bill to a Sprint Store or upload it to sprint.com/halfprice. Bring all the phones and devices currently on your account. You’ll be trading them in.
In exchange for trading in your current devices, Sprint will pay “up to $350″ towards the termination fee or the device installment payments you currently have left with Verizon or AT&T. That bonus comes by way of a Visa gift card after you’ve gotten your final bill from Big Red or Ma Bell. Not turning in your current phone will cost you $200 bucks on your new Sprint bill.
As for new devices — you can choose any device Sprint currently offers (but can’t bring your own) and pay for it up front, at full retail price, or go with Sprint’s “Easy Pay” installment plan, which tacks on $15 – $40 per device you buy, each month.
You can keep your current number(s), and the process of porting them over from Verizon or AT&T is actually what cancels your current service with that carrier. Do NOT cancel your service with Verizon or AT&T before you switch to Sprint, or your number won’t be retrievable.
Sprint provides a few compelling examples of the savings this promotion provides.
A Verizon customer with four smartphones sharing 15 GB of data on the More Everything plan (which includes unlimited calling and texting) will pay $260 each month. With the promotion, that same customer could get the same rate plan and features for $130 each month.
Here’s Where it Gets Interesting
What’s NOT included in that figure is actually what may cost you the most: the unspoken costs and fees.
If, for example, that Verizon customer got four new Galaxy S5-es from Sprint, that $130 bill becomes $239 each month with $27 per month, per device tacked on top.
Want insurance on your devices? Add on another $36 bucks ($9 per line x 4 lines). Now that “$130 bill” is $275 a month, and then you have to add on taxes.
It’s safe to say you’ll spend $300 a month — $170 more than the face value of what you’re told in the store. Since we’re trying to compare apples to apples here, that final number is the number you should compare against your current Verizon or AT&T monthly bill.
Should You Switch to Sprint?
The answer to the question – Should you switch to Sprint? – lies in the answers to two other questions:
a.) Do you fully own the devices you already use or are you paying for them each month?
If you already have late-model devices — say, anything made within the last 12 months — and they’re paid for, whether by signing a contract and paying the subsidized price or by paying the full retail price – you will lose the value you’ve already paid for those by switching.
If you have late-model devices that aren’t fully paid for (Verizon EDGE and AT&T Next customers), switching to Sprint may or may not cost you anything extra. Say, two months ago, you purchased a new Galaxy Note 4 on Verizon, and you’re paying it off with the EIP or Edge program, you may still owe more on it than the $350 Visa gift card Sprint will give you for switching. In that case, you’ll be stuck with the difference out of pocket to pay off the phone.
If your devices are older and you’re ready to upgrade anyway, the switch is a no brainer (as long as you can answer positively to the second question below). This is especially true if you’re already out of contract and free to leave Verizon or AT&T.
b.) How important is coverage, speed, and reliability to your usage?
If you travel outside major metropolitan areas often, Sprint has hit or miss coverage out in the sticks. Often, even when they do, it’s their legacy 3G network, which is abysmally slow. We’re talking about dial-up speeds. It’s painful. Check Sprint’s nationwide coverage maps, here: Sprint Coverage Checker.
If you live in some fairly well-populated small towns or large cities and don’t travel much, Sprint’s 4G LTE network will likely satisfy all your needs. They currently have LTE in 540 cities across the country, and that number is continually growing.
Fact: Sprint’s 4G LTE download and upload speeds are the slowest in America. Real-world speeds, as tested and reported by CNET, average 3.36 Mbps on the download side, and 3.02 Mbps on the upload side. Compare that to Verizon’s LTE network, where I consistently see download speeds of 58 Mbps, far eclipsing even my home broadband from Comcast. AT&T was found to provide average LTE download speeds of 40.5 Mbps and upload speeds of 19.36 Mbps. Depending on how and how much you use your devices, this may make a difference in your decision to switch to Sprint or to remain with Verizon or AT&T.
Read the Fine Print About Data Throttling
Sprint can throttle your data at any time, for any reason, if you switch.
Many of us rely on our smartphones for everything BUT the part that makes and receives calls. In other words, we rely on data. If you take advantage of this promotion and make the switch to Sprint, you should know that YOUR data usage will be prioritized LAST on the totem pole of Sprint customers. In other words, everyone who pays full price comes first.
Read the fine print at the bottom of the offer:
“Other plans may receive prioritized bandwidth availability. To improve data experience for the majority of users, throughput may be limited, varied, or reduced on the network.”
The concerning part of this isn’t that Sprint reserves the right to throttle heavy usage data hogs. It’s that they’re specifically reserving the right to throttle everyone who takes advantage of this offer. Now, not only are you using what Consumer Reports rates as America’s slowest 4G LTE network, but if the other people in your area are full price-paying customers, your data will be even slower, still.
Conclusion
While Sprint’s offer to cut your bill in half sounds appealing, there’s a lot to consider before you take the bait. If you’re still reading at this point, you should have all the information (or at least links to all the information) you need to help in that decision.
I don’t have any agenda here — I couldn’t care less which carrier you use — but I do have an interest in making sure you have all the facts before you jump on the latest marketing ploy for your money.
Black Friday Deals in Tech / Gadgets / Photography
I've been putting together this list of the best Black Friday deals and discounts -- many of them from Amazon so you can use Prime free shipping -- on tech and electronics related gear. I've separated them out into 10 categories to make browsing a little easier.
Everything here is on sale or discounted at least through Cyber Monday. A few of the deals are only good for Cyber Monday, in fact. Everything else is available NOW.
Cameras and Photography
GoPro Hero 3+ Silver - Holiday Bundle
Regularly $349; On Sale for $249.99
Nikon COOLPIX 16MP Camera w/ WiFi & 12x Zoom
Regularly $219.95; On Sale for $139
6 Lens Smartphone Photo Kit w/ Tripod
Regularly $199; On Sale for $69
Digipower Extreme Monopod for Smartphonees & GoPro
Regularly $69.99; On Sale for $45.99
$200 Off These 9 Canon DSLR Cameras
Ranging from $499 to $1,349
Personal Audio
DKnight Magicbox Portable Bluetooth Speaker
Regularly $100; On Sale for $29.99
Beats by Dre - Pill Portable Speaker
Regularly $200; On Sale for $179
Turtle Beach Ear Force X42 Wireless Gaming Headset
Regularly $159; On Sale for $97
Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air Speaker Dock
Regularly $600; On Sale for $399
Beats by Dre - Studio 2.0 Headphones
Regularly $300; On Sale for $254
Smartphones – Android
Samsung Galaxy S5 (All Carriers)
Regularly $199; On Sale for $1
LG G3 (All Carriers)
Regularly $199; On Sale for $0.01 to $29.99
HTC One M8 32 GB (All Carriers)
Regularly $199; On Sale for $0.01
Motorola Moto X 2nd Gen (Unlocked) – Monday Dec. 1 Only
Regularly $500; Will be On Sale for $359.99
Amazon Fire Phone (Unlocked, No Contract)
Regularly $449; On Sale for $199
Smartwatches and Fitness Trackers
LG G Watch Powered by Android Wear
Regularly $229; On Sale for $149.99
Garmin Vivofit Fitness Tracker (6 colors)
Regularly $130; On Sale for $79.99
Pebble Smartwatch for iPhone & Android
Regularly $149.99; On Sale for $99.99
Jawbone UP 24 Fitness Band
Regularly $130; On Sale for $99
Hard Drives and Memory Cards
Samsung 840 EVO 1 TB (2.5-inch) SATA III Internal SSD
Regularly $500; On Sale for $359.99
Seagate USB 3.0 2 TB Portable External Hard Drive
Regularly $159.99; On Sale for $79.99
Seagate USB 3.0 5 TB Desktop Hard Drive
Regularly $259.99; On Sale for $139.99
PNY Turbo 128 GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive
Regularly $69.99; On Sale for $34.99
Kingston DataTraveler 64 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive
Regularly $75; On Sale for $28.95
Samsung 64 GB Class 10 Micro SD Card
Regularly $59.99; On Sale for $24.99
PNY Turbo 64 GB Class 10 Micro SDXC Card (90MB/sec)
Regularly $49.99; On Sale for $29.99
Home Theater
VIZIO 54-inch Sound Bar, Subwoofer, and Remote
Regularly $500; On Sale for $349.99
Roku 3 Streaming Media Player
Regularly $99.99; On Sale for $84.99
LG 50-inch 1080p 120Hz LED TV
Regularly $800; On Sale for $499
Aurum Pro Series 15-Foot HDMI Cable
Regularly $40; On Sale for $9.99
Samsung Curved 55-inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV
Regularly $2,200; On Sale for $1,297.99
Gadgets and Gizmos
Google Chromecast
Regularly $35; On Sale for $23.99
Panther Air Drone Quadcopter with HD Camera
Regularly $250; On Sale for $110
ZAGGsparq 1220 mah Portable Battery Charger
Regularly $39.99; On Sale for $19.98 (Cyber Monday only)
BACtrack VIo Breathalyzer for Smartphones
Regularly $50; On Sale for $42.99
DJI Phantom FC40 Aerial Drone with HD Camera & GoPro Mount
Regularly $650; On Sale for $499
Garmin nuvi 52LM Portable Vehicle GPS w/ Lifetime Maps
Regularly $150; On Sale for $89.99
Jackery Giant+ Premium Portable Battery Charger (12,000 mah)
Regularly $129.95; On Sale for $39.95
invisibleSHIELD Screen Protectors from ZAGG
Buy One Get one Free on Black Friday
NIX 8-inch HD Digital Photo Frame with Motion Sensor
Regularly $90; On Sale for $69.99
10-foot MFi Certified USB Lightning Cable for iPhone / iPad
Regularly $40; On Sale for $18.99
Limefuel 20,000mAh Portable Battery Charger for Phones & Tablets
Regularly $85; On Sale for $34.99
Best iPhone 6 Cases
Spigen Neo Hybrid Case for iPhone 6 (12 colors)
Regularly $34.99; On Sale for $20
Best Samsung Galaxy S5 Cases
Spigen Neo Hybrid Case for Galaxy S5 (6 colors)
Regularly $29.99; On Sale for $19
Best Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Cases
Spigen Neo Hybrid Case for Galaxy Note 4 (5 colors)
Regularly $34.99; On Sale for $19
Let me start out by saying, I consider myself a highly connected member of the digital / social media generation. I'm 27 years old and for as long as I can remember, I've used the Internet (and other connected services) to communicate. I met my first girlfriend in a chat room (that's another story for another time).
However, one app I've known about for years but never taken the time or interest in downloading: WhatsApp. The company was just acquired by Facebook for a staggering $19 billion in cash and stock. It boasts 450 million active users, 70% of whom use the service on a given day. More than one million new registered users sign up every day, which is quite impressive. In Facebook's quest to make the world "more open and connected," the acquisition makes sense.
I have never used WhatsApp and never intend on using WhatsApp. Simply put, it doesn't provide any value that other existing services don't. If you can't figure out how to get in touch with me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google+, Gmail, Google Talk, Skype, text message, iMessage, or an old fashioned phone call, then I probably don't care to talk to you anyway.
I understand the demographic is made up mostly of international users and teenagers. What I don't understand is how and why it has appeal that the myriad of other services don't.
If its anonymity you seek (maybe you don't want to give someone your real email address or phone number), it's just as easy to create a nameless, faceless account on any of the other services that most people already use. Why the need for yet another?
Don't get me wrong; I think the story behind WhatsApp and its acquisition is great. It reads like the American Dream. Unemployed developer gets turned down for jobs at Twitter and Facebook. Four years later, signs legal documents on the door of his old welfare office to sell his company to Facebook for $19 billion. That makes it worth four times as much as BlackBerry, six times as much as Snapchat, nine times as much as The New York Times, and 19 times as much as Instagram.
In the grand scheme of things, it's just another communication tool, one which I don't give two shits about. It's the contrary for Facebook, though. By acquiring WhatsApp, they now own an even more substantial piece of the communication spectrum, and yet another place on half a billion people's smartphone home screen. That's easily worth $19 billion.
It was a perfectly clear (but frigidly cold) night, so I thought I'd go out and shoot some star trails over the bridge.
I found a great spot next to the Charleston Aquarium to setup. Since it was 18 degrees last night, I only shot for an hour and a half, which wasn't enough time for long streaks or full rotations.
To make this image, I used a Sony NEX-7 and SEL 10-18mm wide angle lens. I made 277 total images with 8 second exposures at f/8 and ISO 800. In post, I combined them all using the Star Circle Academy Photoshop stacking batch preset. Once all 277 images had been compiled, I brought the single image into Lightroom for final adjustments and a few tweaks to contrast and clarity.
Today, I went out to catch the sunset over the Boneyard beach near Botany Bay Plantation on Edisto Island. As it happens, the plantation is closed on Tuesdays (of all days!) and I had to switch up my plans at the last minute.
We headed down to Edisto Island State Park on the southern end of the island to catch the sunset, and weren't disappointed. It had rained earlier in the day, so there were a few clouds left in the sky that really added some character to this image.
You can view the full resolution, uncompressed version on my Flickr account, here.
Tonight I tried a new technique (new to me) for cooking steak. It turned out to be the best steak I've ever made, so I thought I'd share the process.
1. Take the steak out of the refrigerator about 30 minutes prior to cooking. This lets the meat warm up to room temperature. Never cook a cold steak, even if you don't follow any of the rest of these instructions.
2. Salt and pepper it on both sides and set it aside for now.
3. Turn your oven on to 450 degrees, and your stove to high. Get out your best sauté pan and add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan.
4. While you're waiting for the stove and the oven to get to full heat, grab some butter and your favorite herbs or spices. Throw them all in a small bowl and microwave the concoction for 15 - 20 seconds so you end up with a liquid.
5. Grab an empty plate (the one you'll eat from later) and put it on the bottom rack of the oven, out of the way. If there's one thing all the major steakhouses agree on, it's never to set a hot steak on a cold plate. At Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, for example, they bring your steak out to the table on a plate that is 500 degrees.
6. Now it's time to cook. Put your steak in the sauté pan and let it sear each side for three to four minutes, depending on the thickness of the cut. The thicker the cut, the longer you want to sear each side.
7. After you've seared the steak on the first side and flipped it, scoop some of your herb butter on the top side you've already seared, doing your best to keep it from running off. As the steak continues to cook, this will absorb into the meat.
8. Once both sides are seared, flip the steak back over to the first side and put the entire sauté pan in the oven on the top rack (your dinner plate should still be in there). Let the steak broil for another four to five minutes to finish it off.
9. Remove the pan and the plate from the oven and put your steak on the plate. Spoon the remaining amount of your herb butter over the top, again being careful not to let it run off the sides. As with any meat, your steak is still continuing to cook while sitting on the plate due to the residual heat and the temperature of the plate.
10. Whatever you do, DON'T cut into the steak to check it's "done-ness". That lets all the juices run out all over the plate right up front. Instead, let it sit ("rest") for 3-4 minutes before you make your first cut. After that, I think you know what comes next. Enjoy.
Unless you've been living under a rock this week, you probably heard the reports that Snapchat turned down a $3 billion cash acquisition offer from Zuck & Co over at Facebook. This deal differed from the Instagram acquisition in that it was an all-cash offer instead of little cash + lotta stock.
All Things D wrote about why their founder thinks they're worth billions, even while producing $0 revenue. The premise is this: if you require a user to press and hold their screen to view content, you can be certain that you have their attention. If you have their attention, you can present ads that are guaranteed to be seen. If you can guarantee ads to be seen, everyone and their brother will throw money at you.
And that's exactly what's happening.
But like everything else, it's not that simple. Back in January 2007, the New York Times wrote this piece called "Anywhere the Eye Can See, it's Likely to See an Ad", where they claim the average person living in a city sees upwards of 5,000 ad messages a day.
Yankelovich, a market research firm, estimates that a person living in a city 30 years ago saw up to 2,000 ad messages a day, compared with up to 5,000 today. About half the 4,110 people surveyed last spring by Yankelovich said they thought marketing and advertising today was out of control.
That was 6.5 years ago. Facebook didn't have an ads platform and Twitter was barely getting started. Instagram wasn't so much as a twinkle in Kevin Systrom's eye, and nobody had even heard of the iPhone.
Just to keep things in perspective here: Snapchat is a 2 year old product (Sept. 2011) that has taken $73 million cash from venture capitalists and produces $0 revenue. The New York Times is a 162 year old company, produced $361 million in revenue in the latest quarter (Q3 2013), and is worth a billion LESS than the $3 billion Facebook offered for Snapchat.
Let that sink in.
The bottom line: unless Evan Spiegel, Snapchat's founder and CEO, got into business to figure out the quandary of ad engagement with a mobile product, he'd have been better off to take the $3 billion cash offer from Zuckerberg, return a solid dividend to his investors, and move on to figuring out the next big thing. Since he rejected the offer, it only makes me that much more curious what he's got up his sleeve.
40, 50, 60 years from now, when I look back on my life, I'd rather be able to say I paid a few percentage points more in taxes so that my fellow humans could have a slightly better life, than leave this world with a ton of money in the bank that I can't take with me anyway. It really is that simple.
Tomorrow, a $40 billion dollar cut in SNAP (food stamp program) goes into effect. For some perspective on SNAP: More than 900,000 veterans rely on it. More than half of all adults will rely on it at some point between age 18 and 65. 1 out of every 4 children in the U.S. live in homes that rely on SNAP. 45 million Americans -- your friends, neighbors, family, maybe even you -- rely on SNAP. Those are facts. Now for my personal thoughts..
1. The $40 billion Congress is trying to save on food stamps is roughly the same amount they wasted by shutting the government down. And they accomplished nothing by doing it. The Tea Party got NOTHING because they deserve NOTHING. Had Ted Cruz and his fellow arrogant overpaid prick buddies not gone on a power trip, they'd have enough to keep SNAP funded as it has been. Now, real people will suffer. That is indisputable.
2. It's interesting to me that the GOP -- America's supposed "Christian" party -- the ones who always want to talk about "What Would Jesus Do" -- are the ones to literally and figuratively take food off of peoples' tables. Related: They're also America's most hypocritical party. [Side note: I'm neither a Republican or a Democrat. I despise them both for different reasons. In fact, I despise the entire two-party system. (https://twitter.com/mbchp/status/396015588469792768)].
3. Most people don't want to live on / rely on food stamps. Most people want a job. But apparently because the government is giving them so much money for food -- about $5 bucks a day for a family of 4 -- they miss out on all the good jobs because they're so busy eating all that delicious food!
4. Sure, cutting food stamps by $40 billion saves us some cash. For perspective, that amounts to less than a quarter of one percent of the federal deficit. A quarter of one percent. That must be the going rate for letting 45 million people be even hungrier than they already are.
5. Fact: The median annual household/family income has dropped every single year for the last 5 years (http://www.deptofnumbers.com/income/us/), yet the cost of food has increased every year for the last 13 years (http://www.worldwatch.org/global-food-prices-continue-rise-0). Is this really the piece of the federal budget we should be looking at cutting to save money?
6. How about we invade a few less countries, spy on a few less foreign leaders, build a few less drones, and stop paying Congresspeople such high salaries ($174,000!) plus pensions and health care for the reset of their lives. Serving in Congress should be a privilege and an honor, not a career path and a means to set yourself up for life. (By the way: Congress hasn't taken a pay cut since 1932. Instead, they've gotten nice fat raises.. no wonder they're not concerned.)
7. I don't mind so much of my paycheck going to taxes. Freedom isn't free. What I mind is where it goes. Lining the pockets of crooked Congresspeople (who never can seem to do their jobs, despite being paid so much) is not my idea of a justifiable reason. Being the world's police is not my idea of a justifiable reason. Shutting the government down and wasting tens of billions of a dollars -- in this case, close to the amount of what food stamps are being cut -- is never a justifiable reason, and taking food off of people's tables who are already struggling will never be okay.
It's never been so clear to me what a divided country we really are and I've never been so ashamed of where we're headed.
