Verizon Thunderbolt will empower, baffle you

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXkqpul38wE&feature=player_embedded#at=12

 

I have watched this advertisement for the Verizon Thunderbolt several times now, and all I can say about the actual phone is that it looks hard to charge. Those of you who have seen The Daily Show or a Shia LaBeouf movie in the past three months will recognize this latest in a series of tone-deaf Verizon commercials that present the smartphone as an alien product that smashes trees and evokes submissive awe in rural people. Like that spot—in which a young man waits eagerly for his new phone to arrive and, once he actually gets it, decides to hurl it as far away as possible—this commercial manages to capture my two main fears about any new smartphone:

1) I have to charge it for eight hours every 16 hours.

2) It may provide evidential proof that I am some sort of douchebag.

I don’t think I’m alone in this.

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Friday links! Crises of conscience edition

dog-shaming-hid-meat-1

There are two of you: the person you think you are, and the person who sees that person clearly. You can ignore your assessment of yourself; you can even forget about it for long stretches of time, but you cannot un-know it. Insofar as we spend most of our time faking people out and excusing ourselves, we are the people we claim to be. At one time or another, though, our honest assessments fill our heads, and we become the person who sees clearly. That person is a dick. Today is Friday, and our crises of conscience are in the mail. Won’t you put off opening the box with me?

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