The grocery bag index

It’s not a good way of reusing, but I carry my lunch in a grocery bag. So, at most our grocery bags have two uses before it’s cast to the landfills to never biodegrade. I could iron them together and make a crafts [link] but really I don’t have the utility or the motivation.

Unfortunately, failing to re-reuse is my downfall. For very personal reasons, I have put us on a very strict budget which has directly impacted our plastic bag income. All grocery shopping will be done by me to curb frivolous expenses. I buy only what we absolutely need and I leave the grocery store with only one or two plastic bags.

The garden provides us with the produce we need, we can go without the luxury of tropical fruit such as bananas, and meat doesn’t have to be served every day. We are living from plastic bag to plastic bag.

I think this says a lot about how we’ve been consuming. When times are free-wheeling, we buy a lot and thus a surplus of plastic bags. As we spend less and give out the glut of our vegetables, we have a shortage of plastic bags.

The plastic bag as economic indicator, the grocery bag index.

iPhone 4 Protest Avatar: Android Domo

I waited on the pre-order day, no white iPhone 4.

I waited on the release day, no white iPhone 4.

I waited on the day the black iPhone 4 shipped to people who pre-ordered online and got the press release of the delay : [Apple Press Release 6/23]

I waited for the latter half of July and got another press release: [Apple Press Release 7/23]

Now, I’m either just going to wait until next July or buy one SIM-unlocked when they show up in Canadian Apple Stores.

Android Domokun
Android Domo

I will be using an android-themed twitter avatar and android phone for as long as it takes for me to get my own iPhone 4.

Apple Patent Application Shows Analysts’ Failure To ‘Think Different’

A continuation of an Apple patent filing from April 18th surfaced this week. The invention “Advertising in Operating System” brought up suspicions that Apple is  preparing a fremium model for the next release of Mac OS X. Fears that there will be pop-up ads just to do basic functions make pretty good link-bait for the tech blog echo chamber. [AppleInsider]

The scary advertising bogey man is holding your OS hostage, or so you've been led to believe.
The scary advertising bogey man is holding your OS hostage, or so you've been led to believe.

Optimists hope that this patent will be used just to prevent other software firms from creating their own ad-supported operating systems. If granted, any company out to make a ad-supported operating system could be stopped by Apple patent-licensing fees. Noble, but if we can’t be bothered with ad-supported television will the market support an ad-based computer. *cough* PeoplePC *cough*

Seeing past the idea of Apple leveraging their iAds platform into Mac O$ XashGrab, there are some real opportunities for Apple to encourage growth. Take a look at the one diagram that the tech blogs aren’t bothering to post:

Advertising Component
Advertising Component

The ‘Advertising Component’ sits alongside all of the other OS pieces. Notice, that it’s neither blocking any of the other modules nor are any modules dependent upon the ‘Advertising Component’.  So follow me on this one, ‘Advertising Component’ is a core technology.

Core Ads or Core iAds brought to Mac OS will entice developers to make apps for the desktop just as they did for the iPhone and iPod touch. Shareware won’t have to nag you to pay for the full version, it will just nag you with the well honed ads served up from Apple. The true beauty of this is Apple doesn’t have to put advertising on any of its applications to make money. Third-party application developers hungry for a slice of the ad dollars will use Core iAds and Apple makes money on the back end. You won’t be stopped by an ad going from AddressBook.app to Mail.app, but you may have to view a movie trailer in order to paste a form letter from your third-party clipboard app.

iAds just can’t sit on mobile devices alone. This patent is a peek into how Apple is going to make it part of our desktop computing.

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