My miracle can beat up your miracle, Mark Morford

[madokie]

Do you recall the browser wars? Microsoft Explorer vs. Netscape and the cute absurdity of the earliest-known battle for Web supremacy, in the late ’90s? That’s OK. It’s worth forgetting.

How about the platform wars, Mac vs. PC? That one ended only recently, with everyone agreeing not to really give a damn anymore, given how Steve Jobs is dead and Bill Gates is now a kindly, gray-haired philanthropist and their respective companies are now both monoliths of such staggering international ginormity it’s no longer any fun to take sides.

How about the megapixel wars? That one’s mostly over, too. Did you notice? Probably not; digital photography has been completely adequate for most consumers since about megapixel number three, despite how Canon, Nikon, Panasonic et al kept racing well past 20, not to mention how all the most widely used camera apps, like Hipstamatic and Instagram, are designed specifically to look like they used barely a single megapixel, underwater, with a piece of dirty Kleenex over the lens. Ironic!

It ain’t over yet. Right now we’re smack in the midst of the smart phone wars, which consists of the iPhone versus, well, everyone else (mostly Samsung). While the iPhone is supposedly still “winning,” Samsung’s Galaxy is apparently moving up quick, thanks to the cheapness of the Android OS and also because oh my God blah blah blah who cares just shoot me now.

the rest: http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2013/05/28/my-miracle-can-beat-up-your-miracle/

[Atman]

1. You must check the illustration with the article!

[Canuckistanian]

2. This one?

[Atman]

3. Yes! Thank you.

I couldn't link it from my phone. BTW, it always strikes me as odd when people take pictures of themselves in the mirror. Virtually every digital camera has a self-timer, and most smartphones have front and back lenses. Why the mirror?

[kentauros]

8. Because a mirror is, quite literally, idiot-proof.

It will always work. Unless you're taking a pic in the dark without a flash or a nearby light turned on, the mirror will never fail to reflect

[Atman]

15. It may be idiot proof...

...but it's still reflecting idiots. Just use the front-facing lens! It IS a mirror...it shows you exactly what picture you're about to take, without your hair dryer and towel rack -- and you holding up your stupid smartphone! I don't get it.

[kentauros]

19. I disagree that it's reflecting idiots.

You can get quite creative using mirrors for self-portraits.

Plus we don't all own smart phones. I'd have to get out my tripod, make sure my one camera with the self-timer has a good charge on the battery, plug in the remote release, and then take test-photos for proper framing and focus just to make a self-portrait without a mirror. Why go to all that hassle when I have a perfectly good bathroom mirror with excellent ambient daylight available during the day?

[tblue37]

20. Maybe it is because a picture from the mirror

can be from a greater distance. If you take the picture directly, you can't hold the camera any farther away than the length of your arm, and that distorts the image.

[Buzz Clik]

12. Does this shroud make my ass look big?

[Atman]

14. BWHAHA!

One good Turin deserves another.

[Buzz Clik]

17. That picture is so fantastic.

When you look at the details of the bathroom, the sink, the bedroom in the background. And he has his finger partially over the lens -- in both the picture and in the image in the mirror.

That pic gets a 10 out of 10.

[tblue37]

21. OMG--He has a lavalamp! nt

[pinboy3niner]

4. Morford is a drunk with a facility for the English language

I like him!

[madokie]

5. He definitely has a way with words

I like his style.

[pinboy3niner]

6. If we weren't so congenitally tongue-tied...

...we might be cashing in on a gig like that.


And you know I love you, Brother...

[madokie]

10. Yes I do, the feeling is mutual

[toddaa]

7. iJunk v DroidCrap

Tech burn out happened when I went looking for a new phone and decided that the only feature I give a crap about is the one thing they don't want me to have. Source code.

We are not tech savvy, we are tech slaves.

[kentauros]

9. What was important to me was actual, tactile buttons.

So I got a crackberry-lite (Kyocera Loft.) It's a "sub-genius" phone, i.e., not smart enough to be a smart phone, or noticed by just about anyone.

And I wouldn't have it any other way

[pinboy3niner]

11. And you sound like you may be tech savvy. Imagine the position the rest of us peons are in...

[toddaa]

13. Far from it

I just prefer simplicity over ease of use. Most new tech is baffling to me. I love programming, but that doesn't require much beyond knowing my way around bash and vi.

[grantcart]

16. I thought this was going to be about Bachman quiting

My miracle beat her miracle by a mile!!

[hunter]

18. My personal electronics are other people's trash.

"Obsolete" stuff they didn't know what to do with so they left it on the curb with a "free" sign on it, sold it at a yard sale, or tossed it out back in the electronic waste bin.

People don't repair things any more, often because they want the new stuff. About half the time repairs are trivial -- a bit of hot glue, duct tape, or epoxy. For computers, people abandon them when Windows gets bogged down by malware and "upgrades" and background processes that hog resources. Wipe hard drive, install an appropriate version of Linux, and the machine is reborn, better than new.

I don't complain about the people who want the latest and greatest and are willing to pay for it. If I'm patient I get it for nothing.