Tag: technology

I don’t want to tip my Uber drivers

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I hate tipping.  Tipping sucks.  I still do it when it’s expected (required). 

C’mon, I’m not Scottie Pippen.

Generously, too, because I like to think I’m a decent human being, and I also understand that those working in industries that expect tips are often ones where the laborers themselves are grossly underpaid and that it’s the unfortunate responsibility of patrons like me, to make sure they can make their ends meet.

But still, I hate tipping.  It’s a practice that reeks of labor abuse, and that companies that allege to care about their customers, put the burden of paying their workers onto them.

What I liked about Uber, aside from the obvious reasons that it’s not a dirty, rickety cab driven by an asshole that smells like one too and they show up relatively quickly and have (usually) better cars is that I don’t have to tip.  I know my cost up front, it is taken out of my PayPal account, and I get from point A to point B with full transparency on cost, who’s taking me in what type of vehicle, and a fairly accurate estimate of time it is going to take.  And at the end of the ride, I don’t have to tip anyone, don’t feel obligated to tip anyone, and the drivers (I hope) aren’t expecting any tips.

That is, until soon, since Uber is apparently rolling out tip capabilities across the board.  Initially, they’re claiming it’s to keep up with their rivals Lyft, but really for both companies and all other rideshare clones, the integration of tipping is something that is closing the gap between rideshare and taxi, but in the wrong direction.

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A completely different meaning for wrestling fans

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few weeks, I’ve heard a radio spot for this employment app called Jobber.  Supposedly, it’s this comprehensive all-in-one employer app that can do everything from asset management, payroll, hiring, and all the other bullshit nuances that go into day-to-day business operations.  Honestly, it seems kind of cool, and like the perfect kind of tool for inexperienced business operators to get their feet wet in the world of commerce.

However, what I can’t get around is their name.  Jobber.

I would wager money that I’m not the only person in the world in their car or listening to Sirius radio elsewhere that heard this radio spot and immediately had their wrestling fan senses triggered by name Jobber and started thinking about constant losers like Heath Slater, the Brooklyn Brawler, Alex Wright, Tommy Dreamer and Crash Holly, among countless others.

To people like us, the phrase “jobber” will never be synonymous with a potentially useful employment application; jobber will first and foremost always be a phrase used to describe a professional loser, who shows up to work, gets their ass kicked, loses a wrestling match, but then gets paid at the end of the day, they go home, and the cycle repeats itself for however long as they are needed to do so.  Jobber isn’t just a noun, the act of jobbing is also a clearly defined verb, and it’s pretty efficient at being an adjective as well.

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Black Mirror is the best show I’ve seen in a while

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Recently, I just finished watching all episodes of Black Mirror on Netflix.  It still seems weird to say it, but I think it’s the best television series I’ve watched in a long time, because it’s one of those series that this opinion didn’t really formulate until I had some time to think about and process the episodes, and then I realize that I’m spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about the show and coming to a slower realization that it really a god damn good show.

I think the best way to describe the show, other than the fact that every episode is pretty self-contained and nobody has to watch them in any particular order, but the stories told, the concepts used, and the twists in the plot, they stick with you.  Seriously, the last time a show stuck with me so hard was Parks & Rec, which is a hilarious comparison to make, given the fact that Black Mirror is pretty much the polar opposite of Parks & Rec in almost every conceivable way.  Yet I favor both shows tremendously, in spite of their dramatically differing places on the spectrum.

Black Mirror should come with a trigger warning however, because they certainly seem to hit notes on a regular basis that, at least for me, that manages to trigger a fear, anxiety or line of thinking that is part revelation, part discovery, and part oh shit.  Regardless of that, I think that’s what makes the show such a unique program, in the fact that they so regularly manage to accomplish those kinds of emotional responses, which I think is ultimately what show creators should aspire to be getting.

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Impending misery

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I unplugged, packed up and moved my PC, I didn’t think much of it.  I have two other laptops that I use that satiate standard needs that there was no real rush to getting my system back up and running in any timely fashion.  So, for the better part of the last month, my PC had been sitting dormant, a black box surrounded by wound up cords and monitors.

So naturally, the moment I needed to retrieve something important off of my PC, it would be at this moment that I’d discover that the hard drive inside of it seems to have died.  Now I’ve dealt with hard drive failures in the past, and it’s never particularly pleasant, but the timing of this one combined with the fact that this wasn’t a hand-me-down machine like several of those before this one, but one I purchased myself with hopes that I could ride it for a good bit, which I did, has made this particular hard drive failure a particularly hard pill to swallow.

Not to mention that pretty much everything important to me, from photography, sensitive documents, websites, writing and all of my work samples and professional information were on it.  Not just from the last six years that I’ve had this PC, but from many more years before it, all transferred and preserved throughout my time of owning computers in general.

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TLC Go: my prayers have been answered

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I remember having a conversation with some friends about the progression of the television industry, and how television today is going down the route of individual network apps with trying to give people the long-awaited ability to pick and choose the things they want to watch, a la carte.  Somewhere along the conversation came the question that if we could only have one network to watch, what would it be?

Unconsciously, I said TLC.  Didn’t even hesitate to say it.  And I guess because it’s true, that if I had to be limited to watching a single network, the endless train car of train wreck shows would have to be it, since wrestling and sports do eventually get repetitive, nature shows have too much overlap and recycling and David Attenborough isn’t going to live forever to narrate them all, and if I had to pick between trash-fiction and trash-reality, I’m going with TLC.

Well, in a rare wish come true, I recently discovered that TLC actually does have their own network app now: TLC Go.  Granted, it’s only available on platforms such as Roku or AppleTV, or via Android or iOS, which kind of inhibits the ability to watch on XBOX or PissNetwork, but I have the capability of still being able to take advantage of its existence.

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Love it but hate it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: Nintendo reveals Switch, the gaming console that allows you to play games handheld as well as on television

The technology behind this is truly game breaking.  I’m very much in awe at Nintendo’s ambitions and forward thinking when it comes to the gaming industry.  Microsoft and Sony aren’t even remotely in the same stratosphere when it comes to competing with Nintendo visions, because they’re too busy fighting each other, churning out products that require a hundred updates a week with a video game occasionally playable.

I’d love to read or hear about the creative concepting behind Switch; and the moments when they realized that it wasn’t impossible to feasibly create something that could be played on televisions as well as through handheld capacity.  On top of that, it’s designed to be a very social gaming system, that allows for lots of multiplayers, as long as controllers are available.  It probably was something really inspirational to be a part of.

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Korea Stories: Random Observations

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The following is more or less going to be a list of random observations I made while in Korea that didn’t really fit into the mold of any one chunk of posts.  That being said, it’s also indicative that I’m pretty much at the end of the rope when it comes to writing about my experiences in Korea.

Internet is as good as you’ve probably heard: When you use the internet in Korea, coming back to America and using my Comcast “high-speed” service that I pay a premium penny for on a monthly basis feels like going from a jet to a Ford Festiva.  Wi-fi, at a public hotel, with many users concurrently connected, was still pulling 60 down and 60 up, speeds that rival my own private connection, hard-wired.  And it was like that everywhere I went; I know, because out of curiosity, I was running the SpeedTest app just to see how good Korean internet speeds were.

Cabs are dirt cheap.  I was often doing math in my head while in Korea in regards to trying to find the USD equivalent of everything I was spending.  It’s easiest to round up or down, to where it’s a 1 to 1,000 when converting a dollar to Korean Won, so basically chopping off the last three digits was the easiest to rationalize the dollar amount of things.  I rode in a lot of cabs, because after the amount I was walking, sometimes I just didn’t want to hoof it for more miles to get to the nearest train station.  But whereas in the States, a cab ride for just a few blocks easily ticks its way to $10 and up, I was baffled to see how often times a cab ride for a considerable distance, often started at roughly $3, and only once did I spend more than $10 on a cab ride, and that was a good distance.

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