Its a fine like between security and stupidity, a line that seems to get crossed quite regularly these days.  I know you all have heard about the TSA and its determination to fondle their way into a secure airport!  Yea, thats a little extreme, but it isn’t that far off the truth.  You just cant make invasive pat downs effective against the types of threats we all face now.  Long gone is the idea that a gunman or knife wielding manic is going to get very far on a plane…there are just too many people out there who will assume the worst and take them out.  These days its explosives we need to be hyper alert for, and as with guns, its better to identify the INDIVIDUAL likely to try such an attack, than to try and find them by fumbling around with said suspects genitalia.

Mike Thinks News 352 Don’t junk my Touch…or something like that TSA

Theres a transformation in the way we consume many forms of media these days.  Television is changing from appointment TV to on demand.  Movies are moving from the theater to your home theater.  Music has nearly crested the hump from CD’s to MP3 files.  So it should come as no chock that your library of books is moving into the digital domain as well.  In fact the main thing that has held back this revolution was a lack of a good way to read electronic books…that is no longer an issue.  Give a listen as I talk about the eBook/eReader revolution and what it means to you and the publishing industry on this weeks Mike Thinks News!

The NFL has had a long standing tradition of asking much of its fans.  The NFL asks its fans to all too frequently pony up vast piles of cash to build new stadiums.  The NFL asks its fans to purchase overprices merchandise of ever changing colors and patters to stay current in their “team spirit”.  The NFL begs us to ignore the excessive pandering to each and every special interest group on one hand, while ding a ling picture senders, wife beaters, and proverbial ass clowns prance around touting how special they are, as they catch a ball on Sunday, and commit some moronic act to the detriment of society on Monday.  But by far the most talked about this year (sorry Bret…we really aren’t that interested) is the way the NFL is still determined to cling on to the outdated policy of BLACKOUTS for local games.  MikeThinks News blasts through this absurdity, at the speed of the internet, in our triumphant return!

There are few things as harrowing to someone as buying their 1st new car.  Now I know your thinking, wow, thats kind of harsh…after all buying a new car is supposed to be fun Mike, isn’t it?  Well, Im not sure what its supposed to be, but I do know that its full of pitfalls and disasters awaiting you at almost every turn.  So this wee, in our top story, we talk about what a former new car salesman says you need to do to get the best deal, while not making a complete jerk out of yourself (too late for me I’m afraid).  So listen to get the scoop on buying a new car and getting a good deal…or getting the best deal on your next new car.

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Also this week I talk about a community where the sheriff puts politics and personal gain over public safety, and goes as far as arresting 1st responders who try and aid a woman with a broken neck because they weren’t who the sheriff wanted to respond to the call for help.  And dont forget about This Week in History where I teach you a few fun facts about this week in days gone by.

==Mike James

call me (347)284-6453 thats 347-Bug-Mike

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Do you remember when we did the story a few years ago on LifeLock?  Ya, know the one where the owner who likes to showboat around with his Social Security number on a truck billboard.  All the while claiming how safe he is because that may be his real Social Security number, but he is protected by LifeLock.   Recall how the wheels started to come off when he himself was the victim of identity theft, not by some high profile, high tech super criminal, but by some ordinary schmoe, who took him for a $500 credit card?  Well, it sometimes takes a while, but the Federal Trade commission has decided that maybe theres less truthiness in the adds than there should be.
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Also this week, we have a story that we really aren’t supposed to talk about.  You see, Apple has forbidden anyone  who creates apps for the Apple App Store from talking about the Apple App Store…or even commenting on the very agreement that forbits them from taking about the agreement…are you dizzy yet?

All that and This week in history, and the story you just cant afford to miss if you have a child in school, on Mike Thinks News

This week broke a few very interesting stories.  First we have Apple taking the fight against all things titillating and taking the now familiar step of banishing apps from the iTunes store aka super Jobs nirvana land.  Seems that someone had the nerve to make apps that had cleavage and bare chested men and such…who would have thought.  Good news is that Apple has got the mothership servers on full alert and are wiping out vast swaths of applications.  The bad news is, as usual, no one is exactly sure whats ok and what isn’t.  But come on, when your app can be rejected because its icon doesn’t meet the “aesthetic standards” of Apple, what do you expect?

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But our main stories this week have nothing to do with Apple, no this week I take a peep at just what those school administrators in Pennsylvania call loss mitigation.  More specifically, why someone or more likely (if not unbelievably) several someones though it was ok to turn on the web cameras of laptops given to children without then knowing about it, while it was in child’s home, or more specifically bedroom.  Now so far its not as bad as that sounds, but its not much better.  The level of DUH this one required is hard to comprehend

Also a story this week about all the new 3d Televisions.  Apparently its not all a good thing, as some researchers believe that watching too much 3d may make a documented issue with watching 3d images on a screen called Binocular Dysphoria, permanent or at least last long enough to be a real issue.  I don’t know what you consider a real issue, but since a few million of these people are going to be driving within minutes of watching 3d stuff, I’d say its just a little more important.

Call the voicemail hotline (347)Bug-Mike    (347)284-6453

–Mike James

The new Verizon Wireless commercials “There’s a Map for That” campaign have gotten a little more attention than they may have wanted over the cell phone carriers doubling of early termination fees from $175 to $350.  Not only is the FCC looking into this move, several representative on Capital Hill have taken notice as well and have proposed new legislation designed to limit how much consumers can be charged by their cell phone carriers in these fees, and also to control how these fees are prorated and sometimes hidden in the legalese of the contracts.  Also on the list of issues for the FCC is how some customers have reported that if they do not choose to get a data plan on their phone (because they don’t intend on using the internet on the phone), it is almost impossible not to accidentally ping the data servers a few times a month by accident when you hit a single preprogrammed key on Verizon phones (and you cant set the phone not to connect if that button is pressed).  When a customer without a data plan pings the data servers, even for just a nanosecond (they see the “connecting to web” message and immediately hit cancel), they are still charged $1.99   Several customer have reported that seeing these obvious overcharges is a regular thing on their bills, and while its easy to get credited if you call customer service, the FCC is curious just how many customers are being charged for these unintentional button presses every month.

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Also this week, I take a look at a strange new law in Australia that will require you to give a percentage of the money you get when you resell a work of are that you paid for.  So if you buy a painting for $100 and fifteen years later sell it at a garage sale, you are required to give a portion of those monies to the original artist.  I really wish I could get paid for things I already sold once.  The idea appears to be to try and protect artists that sell works early in life that become very valuable when the artist becomes popular, although I’m not sure why the artists can’t just make new art, or just who the heck thinks its appropriate to sell something and then come asking for more money later…will I get some kind of refund if I overpay and the artwork end up being worth much less than I paid for it?  I doubt it.

And as always we have This week in history, and strange news you probably hadn’t heard

This week we have another fun show, and talk about this week in history where we learn that not all NFL games are destroyed by bad calls, and that sometimes a charter signed long ago can have endurring impacts on us even today.  I also give you a little known fact about trees and what happens when you carve your name (or that of your special somone) into its trunk.

The news this week is about how some schools seem to think that the Amazon Kindle is a bad tech device because its not able to be setup to read aloud to you if you are blind because that initial setup requires navigating through onscreen menues that do not initially read themselved to you.  As oppossed to all those other tech devices they think are just fine, like all the computers (which do not come pre-set to be accessable to the blind) and of course the standard paper books, which have absolutely no provision to read themselves to you.

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I also cover a science story on why you can remember great jokes and stories…but not who you told them to.  Could it be that your too concerned about how your coming off to others to be bothered remembering who they are?

All that and more on this weeks Mike Thinks News Podcast

I’m back from Vegas and the BWE/NME…with less MonEy…what are the odds!  Had a great time and really enjoyed the party put on by our friends over at Blubrry.  Theres just something about Vegas that makes you want to go back, plus, this year they didn’t have the show in August, but rather mid October.  For those that don’t know why it matters, thats a difference of about 30 degrees!  Got some great news stories this week,

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including:

Neked in your kitchen

The current DUH level is Orange

Yong folks dragged kicking and screaming onto twitter

Is a Space Time rift damaging the Hadron Collider?

Toyota makes the bone headed move of the week…month…perhaps year

There are a few things I think of when I want think about a new cell phone.  The 1st is, when the heck is the iPhone coming to a real cell phone carrier in the US?  Many other countries have the darn thing on multiple carriers and we here in the US are still hosed over with the choice of cool phone or reliable service.  Not for much longer though…Google and Verizon are teaming up the bring Andriod powered headsets the the Verizon network, .let the world rejoice because by years end, i may actually get a cool phone!

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Also this week

Give it away, Give it away now…unless its Eagles Tickets

Making people pay doersn’t always work like you hope

Saturns rings…no no no…I mean Saturns R I N G S ! ! !

photo courtesy of Nadbasher via flickr