The Dismal Trend in Audio Quality

Music appreciation has been increasing over the last 10 years, mostly due to popularity of portable music players including iPods. It seems like almost everybody owns an iPod, from young girls with Hannah Montana iPod cases to the Queen of England, thanks to President Obama.

Technology has allowed a wide range of music to be accessible to many different types of people. Because of this trend in technology, it would naturally seem that audio quality has improved as well. Unfortunately, this is definitely not the case.

Over 90% of the time that I see a person listening to an iPod, they are listening with the included headphones. If you have not heard these headphones, they sound worse than a clock radio from the '70s. This makes absolutely no sense to me.

I don't see how a person can spend $300 on a fancy audio player, just to listen to headphones that sound like neanderthal speakers (such as these). This would be similar to a mom buying a Ferrari only so she can take her kids to school.

I'm sorry if I have offended you, but all I ask is for consumers to spend $50 or more on a good set of headphones (Sennheiser, Grado, Bose, AKG). I promise it will be worth it, and $50 isn't much after dropping $300 on an iPod. Your ears will thank you.

President Obama at G-20 Meeting!

A Simple Understanding: G-20

In these past few days, the topic of many front page headlines has been the G-20 meeting (it also was the subject of my article "Consumer Power"). Everyone talks about G-20 as if it is common knowledge, when in reality, most people have no idea what G-20 is or means.

G-20 is a group of central bank governors from 20 of the most powerful economies of the world. They meet once a year to discuss, announce, study and review global finance. The goal of a G-20 meeting is to balance and maintain the global economy. Each year the meeting takes place in a different country, for instance this year the meeting is to be held in London.

The G-20 meeting this year is getting so much attention due to the fact of the global recession, which is the number one subject. They will look at and discuss many alternatives on how to solve this global mess.

Official Frog Domain Desktop Wallpaper Released!

Frog Domain has teamed up with desktop Wallpaper site Zeus Wallpapers to release the official Frog Domain wallpaper. It is available in two different resolutions: 1680x1050 and 1280x1024. Click here to download.

Hats off for Obama

For those of you that have read some of my past articles, you know that I have had many disagreements with president Obama. This current GM situation that has arisen, could have given Obama one more reason for me to disagree with him. He could have, once again, decided to bailout the automakers with a few hundred billion dollars, but in all honesty, I must say that I agree with him.

Obama did two things right: 1) He said that a  “pre-packaged” bankruptcy is the best conclusion for GM. The details of “pre-packaged” are not yet clear. 2) Wagoner was forced out. This situation, and quite frankly, my opinion, might offend many Americans. Many people may lose their jobs, and many more people may lose money in stocks, but we need to remember our values as Americans. Companies take risks, when a company like GM fails, all of America feels it, but we cannot let private companies become “risk-free”. A “risk-free” company is a nationalized company. We will understand more once “pre-packaged” bankruptcy is defined.

Wagoner needed to step down. Obama asked him to come up with a plan-of-attack and Wagoner could not do so. Any CEO that can no longer lead the company should step down. Thanks for your honesty Wagoner.

As of right now, Obama’s intentions are not yet clear. We do know that respect for capitalism is probably not the reason he chose not to bailout GM, but we do know he made a correct decision. I respect Obama for his decision today and hopefully it is for the right intentions tomorrow. 

Amazon Mechanical Turk: It Just Makes Cents

It seems like many internet users are looking for great ways to make money online. Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) might be the solution to that problem... Maybe...

AMT is a service provided by Amazon that provides work opportunities for internet users. A user must sign up to participate, and payments are issued through direct deposits into bank accounts or by Amazon gift cards if you don't trust posting your bank account online (like me).

So what type of work can be done on AMT? Basically different clients of Amazon post online jobs (called hits) that they desire for their site that a robot cannot do. These hits require human input (such as choosing a picture that matches a topic) and do not require much skill.

About 75% of the hits are extremely simple and provide payouts of about 10 cents per job (not much, I know). There are hits that pay much higher (I've seen up to $10), but these require a HUGE amount of effort and are not worth the rewards.

As you can probably see above, AMT is not a job that you can do full time and make minimum wage. The best time to do a hit would be during times of extreme boredom. It is not worth the time if you have better things to be doing. Over time, these small hits can add up to, say, a free DVD on Amazon or some money off a purchase.

Amazon Mechanical Turk is a great idea because it benefits users and Amazon clients. It is also one of the few sites online where users can legitimately make money, even though it is not much. If you have some free time and do not care about making a large amount of money, try Amazon Mechanical Turk. If not, I don't blame you.