The White House’s current strategy: Save the country by expanding our deficit. Well done! It gives me nine trillion reasons to vote for a third party candidate in 2012.

TV advertisements will never be the same again. I’ll miss ya, Billy.

Advancing battery technology makes me a happy guy. I’m always glad when the gadgets I depend on are able to operate for longer periods of time. However, I don’t like it when I’m forced to sacrifice accessibility to achieve this. A good example? The Apple iPhone. There is no user-replaceable battery. If your battery craps the bed, you have to take the phone to Apple and get a replacement. Now, I’m sure that with a little research and technical diagrams, I could probably replace the battery myself, but the average consumer will not get to enjoy this luxury. That’s bogus.

Now it seems that this trend is becoming more mainstream. Apple has converted it’s entire MacBook line of computers to use sealed batteries. This is also true of some Dell laptops. Their argument is that by doing this, they are able to fit larger batteries into the computer, thus extending battery performance. This is absolutely true, because sealed batteries don’t require casings, exposed electrical contacts, clips, etc. But is sacrificing user-replacability really worth the extra hour or two of charge time? To me, it isn’t.

I have never used a laptop battery to the point where it needs to be replaced, nor have I ever had a defective battery. In Apple’s mind, I fit their user profile. I am someone who has never needed to replace their battery or purchase additional batteries. But, you know what? I like having the piece of mind and control that a user-replaceable battery offers. I bet that doesn’t show up in their study.

I like knowing that if my battery dies, I can easily replace the part myself. I don’t need to hand my MacBook over to a “Genius” (a term that is, in reality, quite variable) at the Apple Store and pray that they handle it with care. I hate it when someone I don’t know handles my $1800 notebook computer. Call me a control freak, but knowing what I know about computers, I also have come to realize that there are a lot of inept people out there. Wearing an Apple logo doesn’t make someone more trustworthy.