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While waiting for the Eaton Center to open so I could get in line to wait for an iPhone (that’s right, waiting to wait), I was catching up on some podcasts. I was listening to a Quirks and Quarks episode from April and Bob McDonald was interviewing Dr. Gary Marcus, the author of Kluge, the Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind. It’s about how the human brain is built by imperfect evolutionary engineering.

If we humans are capable of abstract thought, logical reasoning, and complex language, then how come I can’t find my keys or remember what I did last Friday night?

Dr. Marcus spoke about our brains as marvelous reasoning machine built on top of an unreliable memory system. We have a hard time remembering specifics, but we’re great at making decisions and reasoning things out.

Luckily, we can and do compensate for our lousy and unreliable memories. If we absolutely need to remember to bring something to work, we hang it on the door. Decision making and reasoning overcomes bad memory.

I found it fascinating and I’m going to look for this book.

Here’s a link to the mp3 of the interview.

~ Jason

[Update: July 14th, 11:19am]  I bought the book over the weekend and I’m enjoying it very much.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (7.9MB)

Friday started off with me getting up at 4am, taking a shower, walking down to Tim Hortons for a coffee and getting on a TTC overnight bus. I headed down to get an iPhone on launch day.

I’ve never done this before. I’ve never, ever gotten in line for the release of anything other than a movie. I got down to the Eaton Center at Yonge and Queen at about 4:45am and I had to mill about in the dark and the rain until 6 when the Eaton Center’s doors opened.

There were few people at the food court tables across from the Fido store and after a few minutes, we all got in line. I was 8th. I rather enjoyed being in line with these people. They were friendly and it was nice to be around other technophiles. I have a few techie-friends but none as hardcore as these fine people.

We waited in line until about 9:30am when they opened the doors and let the first group of ten people in. Since I was 8th, I was in that group. The staff was friendly and helpful and understandably nervous about a new process. They’ve never done this stuff before either.

My case was a little different than the people around me. I’m currently on a couples plan with Jenny and I had to get out of that contract in order to sign a new contract required to get an iPhone. I went down there in the hopes that they would offer the ability to buy the phone outright so that an additional contract wouldn’t be required. They hadn’t announced that option as of Thursday night but I had hopes.

This was not an option. So, my next option was to get out of my contract. To do that, I have to pay an ECF, an Early Cancellation Fee. This is $20 a month left in the contract to a maximum of $400. Since we have 2 years left on the contract, that’s $400. As you can well imagine, I was not liking the sound of that. My intention was to talk the rep on the phone to wave some if not all of that fee.

So, at 8:37am, the sales rep called the Fido phone support line and asked me to stay on hold until someone answered. I stayed on hold until shortly after 1pm. During this time, their sales system went down and the activation system for the iPhone through iTunes went down. For a few hours there, nobody was getting an iPhone.

There were three occasions where I almost walked out of the store. I went from understanding for servers going down (which is why their sales system went down), to pissed off, to determination. At about 1, I decided to try and call the Fido customer service line from my cell phone. I got somebody within two minutes. The service rep (Wei, Employee No. 642664) was extremely helpful and informed.

His suggestion was instead of canceling my contract, I switch to Rogers. Since I’m on a couples plan, I can switch to rogers and have my Fido contract canceled without penalty. I could then sign a new contract, get an iPhone and be on my merry way.

This is actually good because all my other services (home phone, internet and tv) are with Rogers. Adding wireless, would mean that I get an additional 15% discount because of the combination.

So, I thanked Wei, got off the phone, thanked Mike the sales rep in the Fido store and walked out. I was very disappointed in spending so much time and effort getting 8th in line and waiting around so long but I’m also proud of myself for walking out of the store without spending $400 in cancellation fees.

I also made some lucky son-of-a-bitch, a very happy person. There were very few 16GB phones available and I got one of the last ones being 8th in line. Because I walked away from it, somebody else being 30th or 40th gets to have my phone.

Now… now I wait. I wait for a Rogers store to get iPhones in stock… I wait for a time that both Jenny and I can go down to this store to sign up for a couples plan… I wait… without an iPhone…

sigh…

~ Jason

Fido (actually Rogers) just announced that they’re offering an ‘Early Bird Special’ data plan for people who purchase the iPhone before August 31st. They’re offering 6gig of data for $30. Now, I’m unsure if that means they’re giving away that much data for the duration of the three year contract or if you only get that much data until August 31st.

I haven’t been able to calm down enough to actually read the press release.

I do know that I will be getting up super-early on Friday morning to head down to the Eaton Centre to see what I can get.

Wish me luck.

~ Jason

[Update: 1:27pm] I just found a news release on the Fido Website click the link to view a pdf copy

Lately, I’ve been pondering the nature of bullshit and the nature of lies. I always new there was a slight difference between them but only recently figured it out.

The difference is in their relationship with the truth.

Lying is saying something that you know isn’t true. You know full well that what you’re saying isn’t true. Taking the last cookie, then telling your mom that it was your sister, is a lie… hands down.

Bullshit is saying something without any regard to the truth whatsoever. In this case, it’s possible that what you’re saying is actually the truth. When asked why the sky is blue and you launch into a lecture on the the particles in the upper atmosphere being more able to scatter shorter wavelengths of light (blue) and therefor making them dominant when we look up, blah, blah, blah… this could be true, or it could be wrong, who knows. It doesn’t matter, it’s still bullshit.

I’ve always been pretty good at lying and pretty good at bullshitting. I decided a long time ago that from then on, I would only lie for good and not for evil. I’ll still bullshit every now and again. And, I’ve been pretty lucky with bullshitting in that more often then not, I turn out to be right…. or at least within arms reach of the truth.

I just thought I’d share my thoughts.

~ Jason

Ok, so I’ve come to the conclusion again that I’m going to get an iPhone. Fido announced that they’ll be offering data plans that can be added on to existing voice plans. This will work out for me. I simply wanted to use the iPhone with my current couples plan.

I am still a little worried, though. Fido and Rogers are still being stingy with details.

I called the Fido support folks today to simply ask if it was possible to get what I wanted. They said that there are add-on data plans but that pricing for them has not been announced. I asked when they would be announced and he said, ‘maybe Thursday’. That’s a little late, in my opinion.

The next burning question was how many iPhones will be in the stores on Friday. I’m planning to head down to the Fido store in the Eaton Center early, early on Friday and I just wanted to get an idea of just how early I’ll have to go down. The dude on the phone couldn’t give me a number but he did say that each store is making a pre-order list so I should go down there and get on the list. I tried calling this Fido store but there was no answer and their general voice mail box was full.

So, I stood up, grabbed my keys and my wallet and headed down to the Eaton Center.

To my dismay, the nice people at the Fido store said that no such list exists and that I should show up early to get in line. Now, the interesting thing is that the woman who appeared to be a floor manager said that they would be getting 170 iPhones for that day. That’s huge news… and you read it here first.

So, I’m going to get up at 4am on Friday to head downtown. I will get a nice Tim Horton’s coffee and hang out. If there is a line up at that time, I’ll get in it… if not, I will wait until a couple people get in the line, then get in. Hopefully there won’t be a line and I’ll be there way stupid early.

On a plus side, I’ve been reading reviews of the iPhone and they have been universally good. The only downsides reported have to do with the cell phone networks that are a requirement for using this piece of technology.

I’m very much looking forward to this thing. I have a funny feeling that this is going to be an iPhone blog for a while.

~ Jason