Just my phone. It's my camera / music player / movie player / compass / satnav / videocamera / processing lab / editing room / maps / guide to strange places out of the beaten path, etc.

But this year's chistmas vacation, there's a piece of electronica that saw way more use than all of your list combined: My lcd projector.

I just binged on about 20 hours of Tiny Toons, the last two volumes that'd been held up forever.

My brain has stopped working. It's not aware that Monday I go back to work.

Aww, look at it. It had to type that last sentence and it's already bawling its eyes our in the corner. It's ok, brain -- I have all of Soul Eeater to kill whatever cells you have left. And if that's not enough, there's always a return engagement of Panty and Stocking..

Streaming and The Cloud: Where the Content Owner or designated representative can come in and remove content you had paid for.

What, exactly, is so appealing about this model? If it's the lack of physical media to store / move, I can *sorta* see that.. but other than that.. where's the appeal in paying for something that the seller / owner can just *zap* out of your world? Does not compute.

And don't give me the "I can view from any device at any time" schtick. Let's take "Wreck-It Ralph." I bought the BD / DVD combo. Ripped the DVD into an apple-friendly format and have it in my phone as part of my "desert island" playbill. The actual disc set is just chillin' in my shelf, and gets played -- a lot. So.. I just do'nt follow. Sorry. I have it in two devices at once. I can make that 3 or 4 without much trouble -- without having to "stream" it from somewhere.

I simply don't see the value of paying for something you can't hold in your hand and can be taken away at a whim. Sounds to me like a model made by criminals bent on theft.

If you want to keep it, get it in physical format.

...that's an A-T field!

You're just accounting for pressing and packaging the disk.

Really good mikes cost a lot of money. Five digits USD is not uncommon. Renting a studio is expensive, and so's building one. THen there's mixing, editing and all that. Talented, skilled engineers cost money, and lots of it.

I'm not rooting for the labels, but props where props are due: "The Labels" know / knew what they were doing. Archiv / Deutsche Gramophone, Atlantic, Telarc, RCA, Columbia, Decca all went out of their way to get better sound. They invented, innovated, adapted new technologies / methods. And that aspect of their business has my support.

Example: Deutsche Gramophone worked with Yamaha to make a recording system capable of getting a 144db dynamic range. That's beyond ridiculous. I have a set of Beethoven Symphonies recorded with this. I had to get a much better amp. The old one couldn't handle it cleanly. When was the last time some indie producer pushed the limits like that?

But of course, if one listens only on crap earbuds or a crap car stereo, then who cares, right? I bet you 9 out of 10 people just flat out don't care about how it sounds, and by extension how your body perceives it. It's more than just your ear holes, you know.

I still think streaming is for suckers. You pay for something that can be arbitrarily taken away by the "content owner" at their whim.

eh, so 5 years instead of 7.. I fail at maths, I don't hate it -- it hates me. The problem is magnified by caffeine deficiency.

A Shell station I used to go to at another job had brand new pumps installed in 2008. These "new" and "improved" pumps would start playing ads the second you took the nozzle off the cradle and started pumping.

Result? I haven't been to that station in 7 years. To hell with intrusive adverts to a captive audience.

Boycott the store, people. Don't buy there. There is no greater "fuck you" to a merchant than an empty till and a competitor's store full of what used to be your own customers.

The Swiss don't exclusively own the high end. The Japanese have wicked watches, there's Seiko and their partner Orient. Seiko has a higher-end name called Credor, and they've made some outrageous stuff.. how about grand complication with sonnerie, based around the SpringDrive movement?

Feel too lazy to type links so just look up Credor, Grand Seiko, Spring Drive. Also Credor Torque and Credor Sonnerie. I'm not gonna type the links for you. Use the google!

What makes Seiko so special? They make everything. They don't buy movements from someone else -- like the swiss do -- and then finish them themselves. Seiko makes everything -- the steel the case is made of, the crystal, the dial, the markers, the glue that glues the markers to the dial, the jewels, the spring that holds the jewel, the lube that goes between the jewels, they make the mainspring, the crown, the stem, every single piece of the movement, the hairspring, etc.

The only other watchmakers than can boast complete construction of every piece of their watches is Patek Phllipe, Jaeger and maybe even Panerai. Everyone else buys from ETA or Jaeger. Cartier? Jaeger. That obnoxious 52mm penile extender? ETA. Bell & ROss? ETA. Omega? ETA. ETA ETA ETA. Jaeger and ETA makes most watches' movements for Europe.

And lastly, if you think Rolex and IWC are the high end, well... I'm sure Patek Phillipe, Seiko and Jaeger would dispute that claim.

Go ahead, do your googlin' and youtubin'. Spring Drive will make your head explode. ETA tried and failed miserably to copy that. It took Seiko almost 30 years to perfect it.

What's on my wrist? A 1968 King Seiko, handwind, no auto. Keeps to plus or minus 2 seconds every 24 hours. Hand-made. Fanatical attention to detail. Don't bother, you won't find a 44KS unless it's from ebay, never sold outside japan.

I'll open by repeating what others have said: this isn't being a Luddite, not by any means. If there's a tech toy / tool that makes my life easier, I'm all for it, whether it be physical goods or software.

But, similar to the "i love me" websites of the early days of the web, Twitter and Facebook, to me, are just another kind of dancing cat / hamster / chilli pepper: Utterly superfluous. I actively reject them, I have no FB or TW account. I don't want to know what my friends are doing 24x7. I don't want the world to know that I just had six blonde Oreos and two cups of non-name-brand non-trendy coffee that is still awesome due to careful preparation.

I'm sure this view is incomprehensible to some. To them I say: It's ok to sell yourself, if you don't mind being treated like a whore -- kept around only as long as you have value to the people "giving" you the serivce for "free." Myself, I'll make "them" work for their money: If you want my $, then you should make things that interest me. I'll hear about them, ads or no ads.

But to those making targeting decisions / algorithms with data obtained from my mere mousing around, I say "fuck off." I took off your logo'd t-shirts and polo shirts a decade ago. I stopped listening to your drivel on TV a decade ago. I block ads and do a few other interesting things, just so I don't have to see / hear your unrelenting patter.

Maybe y'all should look at it from that point of view: To them, your body is a billboard to display their ads, you are data, not a person. Deny them the use of your body, deny them the use of your data. Most everytime you click somewhere you just either made someone a fraction of a penny, or gave data to someone who will eventually make a mint aggregating your data to a massive data mine from which they "target" ads (or lately, as it turns out, "target" people directly)

Resistance to always-on isn't being a luddite, it's about being yourself, and keeping that self as private as possible. It's about not being a slave to the phone, but having the phone as a toy / tool: there for your use or amusement, not the other way 'round.

-- Dave Matthews Band

...but thinking it out in a more nerdly fashion, perhaps we're closer to computer-driven cars than we may think.

My pre-2000's cars were what I call "rope-and-pulley," for just about everything. If not literally steel rope on pulleys (from your toe to the throttle butterfly) then hydraulic, from your foot to the brakes or clutch, and from your fingers to the wheels via power steering, usually hydraulic.

But now, for years, benz has had brake-by-wire. Toyota does too. My own car has throttle-by-wire. So do many others.

How soon before we get steering-by-wire? My own car now has electric power steering, and this car's from 2005. One small step on the way to steer-by-wire.

Once we have steering by wire, throttle by wire and brakes by wire, we'll have a full drive-by-wire car.

In that sense, computers will then be driving the car, interpreting each input you give it, and deciding whether it's "ok" to give you the reaction you requested. Just like the Paris Lawnmower

Specifically, out of either Calvin and Hobbes, or Ozy and Millie.

I'm all for it, of course!

You're an idiot if you're complaining about this.

Well, good day to you too, sir.

My complaint isn't about the message, it's the method of delivery. Or rather, the inability to turn off The President's Mouthpiece.

I can turn off the AMBER and weather alerts, but not The President's Mouthpiece. That's the part that truly gets my goat. Now listen to your phone like the good little citizen you are!

I don't object to the message, I object to the chosen method of delivery and the inability to opt-out of the most ominous. In other words, if the Government speaks and one has a WEA-enabled device, one must listen like a good little citizen!

You know, like those radios some governments had mandated you have. Good luck if they found you with a non-compliant radio.

...where do I get a nice tinfoil hat?

It's not paranoia if it's out in the news.....