Disqus - Latest Comments for Nate_Wesley

Re: Dell Venue 8

Nate_Wesley — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 18:11:38 -0000

Google clearly slots the Nexus 7 (and Nexus 10) as its own premium and
direct-from-the-developer Android experience, and not simply as a me-too
response to the iPad. Dell isn't doing that with its Venue line of
tablets--the Android versions are entry level options alongside what it
considers the 'true' premium experience of Windows 8.1 tablets that they
distinguish with 'Pro'.

My biggest problem with this review is the gripping over the Venue 8's price, one that's easily $50-60 lower than the newest Nexus 7--and temporarily $100 lower if you shopped Dell.com's Black Friday sale. So to mention the Kindle Fire HDX and the 'old' Nexus 7 as better buys when they aren't aiming for the same space is goofy.

Re: Who Should CNN Tap for Its Daily Show Knockoff?

Nate_Wesley — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 01:47:06 -0000

He's had enough shows to fail with.

Re: Who Should CNN Tap for Its Daily Show Knockoff?

Nate_Wesley — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 01:42:54 -0000

Seder would be great in that kind of roll. He would also set fire to the very walls of CNN itself, which is why he probably wouldn't be hired for *this* job.

Re: Who Should CNN Tap for Its Daily Show Knockoff?

Nate_Wesley — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 01:40:26 -0000

If CNN 'must' do this (and they really shouldn't, but...), I've got the perfect name: "Friday Night News Dump", as this should probably be a once-a-week affair. Off the board host suggestions: Kristina Wong, Greg Fitzsimmons, Bill Bellamy, Whitney Cummings, Greg Proops, Neal Brennan, Kim Coles, Karen Kilgariff

Re: Risky Business: Yahoo’s Logo Redesign

Nate_Wesley — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 15:20:09 -0000

The Tropicana changes were notable because they dramatically affected branding AND the experience of buying that product (new logos AND unfamiliar bottling). In contrast, Pepsi has shaken up its logo several times since the 1990s. And since it *STILL* uses the 2008 redesigned logo and its related typeface on all extensions of Pepsi Cola...has it really 'bombed' with consumers? Have we still got Republican consumers crying for boycotts because 'it looks like the Obama campaign logo'? No, and the refresh hasn't markedly hurt the sugar-water business.

And since Yahoo's superficial change *alone* isn't going to bring it back to web/tech superiority, it's pretty useless to declare it a failure both ways. "No reaction, no passion about the company. Negative reaction, CHAOS AND FAILURE!" What's more, this article gives short shrift to the things Y! has actually done right, including taking chances on Tumblr, refreshing services like Mail and Flickr for usable alternatives to Gmail and Instagram, and investing in online content (Yahoo Sports has actually become a credible sports brand of its own thanks to its writers, and without resorting to Bleacher Report-like click bait pieces.)

Re: Texas A&M Student Body President Vetoes Bill That Would Have Taken Funding From Campus LGBT Center

Nate_Wesley — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 18:04:39 -0000

Watch them get hit with the 'damn liberal colleges' slur anyway.

Re: Google's Eric Schmidt Uses A Blackberry

Nate_Wesley — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 13:39:55 -0000

A good CEO should probably be well versed in what the competition is doing, right? Both for 'haha we do this better' AND 'woah we need to fix this' reasons. It's not that shocking that Schmidt is using competing tech, anymore than it is to expect the head of Old Navy actually to use their cheap clothes.

Re: How to Get Prayer Back in Schools

Nate_Wesley — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 12:53:27 -0000

1. You can't talk about this country's creation without mentioning that its founders were also escaping the notion of an imperial or government influenced church. Religious freedom was one of those heady American ideals--so was the lack of it.

2. Our money isn't 'rooted in God'. (Really? We put it on the stuff evil men covet?) 'In God We Trust' been an off-and-on slogan mentioning God, and we fortified it (and 'One Nation Under God' in the pledge) as an official slogan for reasons that weren't explicitly reverent or deferential to Christianity--they were both 'take that' responses to Communism during Cold War times.

3. 'Never had an atheist president'...and? None of the people usually regarded as the 'Founding Fathers' *were* presidents, though some went on to serve. And even then, you have 'problems' like Thomas Jefferson being an anti-cleric (Google 'Jefferson Bible') and quite down with schtupping Sally Hemings; and figures like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine being more deists than followers of organized religion. Which is a good launching point for...

4. When conservatives say 'This country was founded as a Christian nation', they don't want people doing the subsequent (and simple) brainwork needed to note that Christianity and religious expression were hilariously different back then as compared to today, where there's infinitely more diverse voices joining the conversation. It's kind of the same mind trick the GOP does when they slogan themselves 'The Party of Lincoln'. Technically true, but lacking a helluva bunch of historical context.

5. The Instagram meme she talks about literally tries to say 'God is not allowed in schools', and Ms. Lemieux has just written of how that's just not true. You seem bent on making this a referendum on atheists or agnostics in a way rhetorically similar to 'homosexuality caused the hurricanes'.

When the people who call for us to return to God also tell us we should go out and buy chicken sandwiches to affirm those values? Sorry Wendell, that INVITES ridicule, and there are growing numbers of believers tired of being lumped in with proud dopes.

Re: Current Considers Putting Itself Up For Sale

Nate_Wesley — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 15:19:36 -0000

Can I nitpick with something mentioned in this article? It says Current TV was 'founded in 2005', but that's not a full account of its start. This is the former Newsworld International news channel that relied mostly on news content from the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC). And even when it became 'Current', the channel stopped its direct news/journalism focus for short YouTube-length videos with a documentary bent, many of them produced by freelancers and amateur filmmakers who could submit videos online to the Current.com website.

Call Current TV what you want, but it isn't a failure: The old NWI channel it came from was only in about 20 million homes. With this impending sale, it'll probably just become part of another media behemoth. I wonder who, though--Comcast, Time Warner, Disney, and News Corp. don't really need it as-is. Might CBS be interested?

Re: Obama: Ayn Rand Is For Misunderstood Teenagers

Nate_Wesley — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 19:52:15 -0000

In other words "Twas cool for a little while, then I grew the F up"

Re: Mitt Romney To Obama: No, You Have A Hidden Video Problem

Nate_Wesley — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 22:26:18 -0000

So in other words, he's 'all in' for low-info voters, as opposed to the low-income ones he doesn't care about.

Re: Engadget Giveaway: win one of three Nexus 7 units, courtesy of Poweramp!

Nate_Wesley — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 18:12:35 -0000

I'd love to win a new Nexus 7 tablet. C'mon Engadget!

Re: 'The Killing' cancelled by AMC

Nate_Wesley — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 17:56:54 -0000

Despite being 'offended' that they didn't solve the Rosie Larsen case in season 1, I followed through to season 2 anyway. To keep "The Killing" going, however, producers and writers would need new characters (detectives & suspects) associated to a brand new mystery case--perhaps in a completely different location setting. With that much work, you might as well make it an entirely different show.

Thinking about it, though--a 2.0/3.0 version of a TV show wouldn't be unprecedented, nor would it be the worst idea in the world. How many different terrorist 'days' did '24' successfully suck us into, after all?

Re: Current TV cable deal in jeopardy over low ratings

Nate_Wesley — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:36:42 -0000

taser_this, you beat me to it. Typos, or hilariously bad research. Current is available to about 60 MILLION television households (a conservative figure out of about 116 million TV households, total). For that matter, Time Warner Cable has 12 MILLION subscribers.

I know of Current mostly through its days as a quirky channel showing freelance news videos when I had DirecTV--which happens to be the second largest subscription TV company behind Comcast. Even if it were a DirecTV exclusive, that's still about 20 million homes alone. Fact checking needed:

http://www.google.com/searc...

Re: Should President Obama Remain Silent About Trayvon Martin?

Nate_Wesley — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 01:05:34 -0000

Why would Watkins try to use theSandra Fluke controversy as proof of some double standard? She tried to testify publicly for the contraceptive mandates that were part of the health care reforms the President signed into law. Neither that issue nor the ensuing Rush Limbaugh controversy have anything to do with the Trayvon Martin tragedy.

I'll tell you why he would: Pot stirring to ding PBO. Watkins may be carrying rhetorical water for his buddy Cornel West on this one. Don't think so? Just consider the approach: "Look, the black president ain't doin' nuthin for black people again! He helped the white gal before he helped us!"

Not
helping, professor--direct the pressure where it really needs to be.

Re: Should Lottery Winners Be Eligible For Foodstamps?!?

Nate_Wesley — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:01:01 -0000

Taking this woman's level of financial expertise into full account--I'd
tell her to look at her money this way: Babe, you don't have 'five
hundred thousand dollars', you have five years of a $100k allowance. (Or ten years of $50k, and so on.)

While I'm sure everyone hopes she is the 'get a paying job' type, simply getting her to think long term about this windfall would be huge. Maybe
she will 'ball out' on clothes, shoes and a shopping spree every now
and then--her choice. But if the children are taken care of and the house note is paid, well...there's not much else I can fault anyone for doing with their money after that.

(I should note that I've been unduly influenced by a jobless cousin who blew a sizable Phen-Fen settlement on used cars and limited stints in apartments.)

Re: BougieLand: I fully endorse #NewBlackHistoryMonth

Nate_Wesley — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 11:50:23 -0000

I think I can solve #NewBlackHistoryMonth while technically saving #OldBlackHistoryMonth; Start BHM during the MLK holiday, and when the month of January starts late, carry it through March enough for it to encompass no less than forty days: "40 Days of Black History".

The King holiday is probably when the rest of the country pays most attention to African-American achievement, even if mostly for good public relations reasons. I'd guess that most of us are more personally mindful of our great stories during the same time, even as we're fairly interested in what we're doing/what we've done throughout the year.

If we're gonna study and celebrate greatness, we truly need more than a month.

Re: The Subtle Bigotry That Made Jeremy Lin the NBA’s Most Surprising Star - COLORLINES

Nate_Wesley — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:52:35 -0000

Really though? You just read an article about how Jeremy Lin's success is thumping old racial stereotypes, and you chime in with...an old racial stereotype? Oh, how bright you are.

Re: Al Sharpton Completely DESTROYS Tea Party Congressman.

Nate_Wesley — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 15:58:44 -0000

Not the most polished smackdown I've seen, but it was a smackdown, nonetheless.

Also, the folks at Left In Alabama (blog shoutout) should be plenty happy--now the nation knows it has a f'n robot serving as one of its Congressional representatives.

Re: BougieLand: Bougie Movie Review - Jumping the Broom

Nate_Wesley — Tue, 10 May 2011 04:42:08 -0000

Two comments without spoilers:

1. JTB could have been much 'worse' in scripted dialogue and plot, yet the Martha's Vineyard backdrop really set a refreshing, semi-aspirational tone that didn't seem like a forced or artificial diversion. Note to aspiring Black film writers: You apparently CAN create competent stories that take place 1) outside of the 'hood and 2) outside of the South, even if more of us are moving back.

2. Brian Stokes Mitchell is Paula Patton's movie father, and I know I can't be the only one who immediately recognized him from his memorable stint on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air...and subsequently thought of his most memorable moment on the show: "HILARY BANKS...WILL YOU MARRY ME..." [splat]

I really enjoyed the movie, even though romantic movies aren't really in my wheelhouse.

Re: BougieLand: Wait - so now I'm a racist?

Nate_Wesley — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:25:42 -0000

"I'm a veteran, served my country proudly for thirty years."

My response: "That would mean you served in a military that has been racially integrated for a good long while...I'm so sorry you learned NOTHING from working alongside your brothers in arms who just happened to be Black."

Re: BougieLand: What would you do? Ka-ching!

Nate_Wesley — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:16:36 -0000

*liked* because SallieMae NEEDS to be told where to go

Re: BougieLand: What would you do? About that prenup...

Nate_Wesley — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:56:47 -0000

If you believe in buying insurance, what sort of opposition or offense could you take toward a prenup?

Re: Arianna Huffington: ‘Go Ahead, Go On Strike — No One Will Notice’

Nate_Wesley — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:17:02 -0000

People go on The Daily Show and The Rachel Maddow Show promoting themselves, ultimately based upon the work THEY RECEIVE PAY FOR (as an elected official or a paid media position), or are hoping to GET PAID for (book/movie/music sales, lucrative website hits, etc.).

Ms. Huffington, your comparisons fail hilariously. Maybe bloggers shouldn't get the same pay as the journalists, but they should get something. Stop being cheap.

Re: UPDATE: Joe Webb wins his first NFL start

Nate_Wesley — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 22:22:57 -0000

Go Joe!