Our Great Sin - by Devin Coldewey

I just came across this today. It's fabulous. Have no idea who Devin Coldewey is, but i like him immediately. sj

Our Great Sin
Devin Coldewey
Feb 1, 2011

I recently watched, like many of our readers, the interview (1, 2) with Mike Daisey regarding the conditions under which Apple products are made in China. And at the risk of fomenting conflict with Mr. Daisey, I would like to editorialize on the topic in slightly broader and harsher terms.

Actually, it’s not that I disagree with the man, exactly. It’s that he doesn’t go far enough, and in doing so conveniently avoids requiring himself or anyone else from doing anything but being concerned. If you’re going to take on ideas like globalism, corporate responsibility, and cross-cultural morality, you don’t get off that easy. You can’t establish a predicate like “the way our lifestyle is made possible is immoral” and somehow avoid unpleasant conclusions.

The “great sin” isn’t Apple’s, or any one of the other major international corporations that use Foxconn or similar megafactories. And it isn’t Foxconn’s either. It’s clearly, inescapably, ours.

Now, I’m not going to get all Das Kapital on you. The idea here is simpler and closer to home than some grand idea of political and economic metatheory. The basic fact is this: an “ethical” iPhone would be too expensive. That’s literally all there is to it (replace iPhone with your device of choice). Everything follows from our own unwillingness to pay for the true cost of a device. People want a better world, but they don’t want to pay for it. Nothing new there, really.


To pretend otherwise is plain hypocrisy. The question is whether we are willing to take responsibility for our own immorality? We’re too cheap to care where our goods come from. Admitting to anything less is ridiculous.

There are three primary responses when confronted with incontrovertible proof of your own immorality:

Claim moral status and adjust actions
Claim moral status and justify actions
Claim no moral status and continue actions

There are precious few who will take door number one. It means giving up nearly everything that makes up the life of a first-world citizen. Very little in the way of consumer electronics, cars, and other status symbols is manufactured ethically. Door number one is abandoning the pleasant inequality inherent to the modern world. Can we be expected to do that? I guess it depends entirely on what we expect from ourselves, so I’m going to guess that no, we won’t be doing it.

Door number two is where you’ll find most people. I’m not sure how one does it, but you can apparently take the moral high ground while continuing the actions you condemn. Politicians have no trouble doing this, but their airport-bathroom dealings aren’t usually public (public information, rather). And millions of people will buy bottled water while deploring the state of the third world, and not feel the hypocrisy leaking from every pore. Last year everyone made a lot of noise over the supposed iPhone 4 suicide. The outrage was quickly forgotten and everyone became angry instead at Apple for a design flaw in the device. Easy come, easy go.

click HERE to see original piece and finish reading article (including the link to video interviews Devin is responding to). you'll be glad you did.

I drank 763 beers last year. how many did you drink?

As 2009 came to a close, out of nowhere, I had this thought: “I wonder how much beer I drank this year?” Too many, probably, I guessed. A day or two after I had that thought, I happened upon this article detailing how heavy drinkers, as well as just moderate drinkers of beer, have significantly higher risks of developing multiple cancers, such as esophageal, stomach, colon, liver, pancreatic and lung. Sobering, to say the absolute least:

“In general, the odds increased in tandem with the men's lifetime alcohol intake…with several cancers, men who drank at least one beer per day tended to have higher risks than those who drank on a regular, but less-than-daily, basis….when it came to esophageal cancer, for instance, men who drank one to six times per week had an 83 percent higher risk than teetotalers and less-frequent drinkers, while daily drinkers had a three-fold higher risk.”

Just one beer per day? A six-pack per week? Whoa. It’s not like I want to live forever, but I’d prefer to maximize the one life I have on this planet (if it’s not too much effort), and spend my old and alone years suffering in as little pain as possible.

“So,” I thought, “It’s simple: I’ll cut down in 2010, keep track of how much beer I actually drink, and then at the end of the year, I’ll take stock. If need be, I’ll cut down even more, in 2011.”

The very next thought I had was, “I need an easy way to keep track of every beer I drink in 2010. Perhaps there’s an app for this?” Sure enough, there was. Took me 4 seconds to find it. It’s called “Beer Counter.” Brilliant!


So in the first several minutes of 2010, with the press of a finger, I tapped on miPhone, entering the first beer I drank that year. Then another. And another.

I kept track of every single beer I drank last year, whether I was at home, out for dinner, at a rock show, a sports event, out of town, or hanging at a friend’s house. Every single one.

I finished my 763rd beer, as the clock struck midnight, ringing in 2011. That’s an average of 2 beers a day; 15 beers a week; or 64 beers a month. It’s roughly 32 cases a year. I also took pictures of every case of beer I bought. Here are just a few:




A few days into this year, I decided it would be awesome if I could decrease my beer intake from last year, by around 25%. This seemed like a do-able goal, I thought, and I’d be building on the previous year’s decrease.

Well, I’m just finishing my 47th beer right now, 31 days in. That’s just 1.5 beers a day – right on target!

I’ll check in with y’all this time next year for an update…

"I don't care - I want an iPhone 4"

just watch this. it's bleepin' hilarious. btw, I'm w/ the brown bear (if that's what they are), as all "appleheads" are!! (yes, u may need to sit thru a 30-second ad)- sj

iPhone 4 Vs HTC Evo - Watch more Funny Videos

Tweeting Works: AT&T Boosts SXSW Network

so here's an update on an earlier post about ATT/iPhones tanking in Austin due to crowds. sj

The tweets, blog posts and constant complaining about AT&T’s shoddy network coverage at South by Southwest has not fallen on deaf ears. Seth Bloom, a spokesman at AT&T, emailed me 10 minutes ago to say that the carrier is adding capacity to the downtown Austin network, and attendees should see their iPhone (or other AT&T device) experience improve by this evening. Bloom writes:

"To accommodate unprecedented demand for mobile data and voice applications at SXSW, we are actively working this afternoon to add capacity to our cell sites serving downtown Austin. These efforts are ongoing, but we anticipate that customers should see improved network performance this evening and for the remainder of the event. We will continue to monitor network performance throughout the event, and will do everything possible to maximize network performance throughout. We apologize to customers who were inconvenienced during this surge in local network demand."

Let’s hope the added capacity helps, and that AT&T customers can keep toting their smartphones, rather than bulky laptops, around the convention center.

AT&T Fails The SXSW iPhone Test

uh - oh. I might not be live blogging from sxsx2009 after all. it's gonna get 5 times as crowded next week. &^%$! sj

South by Southwest is one of the biggest annual geek shows, so naturally there are thousands (tens of thousands?) of iPhones roaming around downtown Austin. Good luck making calls or receiving text messages, especially anywhere near the convention center.

As this Twitter search feed illustrates, many people are frustrated with the lousy mobile service AT&T (T) is providing. (Our $100/month iPhone has "no service" in the press room, for instance.)

Of course, this is probably more iPhones per square foot than AT&T has to deal with in Austin any time during the year. But mobile companies love to brag about the temporary networks they set up for big events like the Super Bowl. So next year, AT&T, how about a better plan?