The Ranting Beaver

And no, surprisingly, this is not another rant about the state of Hollywood (although, I could go off on that too).

Two items came across my field of view today:
Apple is suing HTC for patent infringement
Nick Simmons (son of Gene) is apparently copying various manga for his comic

Both are two entirely different situations, but it boils down to the same thing -- if you can't do something, copy someone who can.

Couple of things up front:
1) I had no idea Nick Simmons was working on a comic. Or that he could (sorta) draw, really. I collect comics but apparently I have not been looped into what is going on in comics for some time. I am also a big fan of manga but no where near some of these folks who could make the comparisons they did.
2) I am not a big fan of Apple or it's tactics to ensure it's monopoly in the arena of music/players, and in this case cell phones. The real reason why you will never see the iPhone on Verizon is because Verizon is not stupid enough or desperate enough to accept the crap deal AT&T took. Not to mention all of the Droid and iPhone is on a lame network ads. I actually have an iPod touch and (grudgingly) like it.

Just wanted to point out that I am not a hater on Nick or HTC here. Still if they are guilty of what they have been accused of, then they should be held accountable. Granted, they won't be, they'll just be added to the ever growing list of people, companies, etc. that have decided it is easier to take the shortcut. And why not, it apparently pays off.

We Americans are a lazy bunch - we want our food fast and our TV/movies formulaic. We're dumb or at the very least dumbed down - and that is our comfortable place. Almost anything that strays from that or challenges a person to invest more than a few brain cells is quickly squashed. This is why big business sells us the crap we see - they buy into this notion, because it's not wrong. This is why we still have cars that run on gas and only get 26 miles to the gallon. This is why we get CDs with one or two "good" songs, only determined to be so because they have been in rotation for weeks on end on the Top 40 stations. This is why a TV show with some originality gets cancelled in a couple of weeks, because people are afraid to like it until the masses do. This is why we still have Jay Leno and not Conan O'Brien. Because it's safe and we like zombies fall in line.

In this country, invention is dying. Or at the very least it is being kept to the outer fringes. If you think about it, we haven't had a new product invented, probably since the cell phone but even that was an innovation to something we already had - a home phone. Much of what we have today is a riff on something that has gone before. As 3M might say, "We don't make the things, we make things better." This exemplifies the point I am trying to make here.

So, today I am calling to you all -- take a moment and think about what life would be like if things weren't so safe and comfortable. Imagine a world where competition was based on who produced a better product, not a better version of the same product. A world where more than the same lame choices existed in media. A world where good artists could get radio/TV time instead of some jackass who tried out for American Idol, knowing full well they were a jackass. A world where people didn't buy books because Oprah recommended them.

Your homework, should you chose to accept it, it to seek out something -- a CD, a book, a show, a movie, a cell phone, a gadget, an artist, a writer, a twitter page, anything! -- that would not typically appeal to the general masses and post it or a link to it in the comments. Hell, if it's your original idea/product/etc. even better. The one catch here is that it has to be something you genuinely like and not because you were told it was good. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.