Month: September 2010

An Old Fashion Book Burning

In a bastion of free speech an expression no such thing as a book burning can take place:

The Defense Department is attempting to buy the entire first printing – 10,000 copies – of a memoir by a controversial former Defense Intelligence Agency officer so that the book can be destroyed, according to military and other sources.

So much for America being a bastion of free speech and expression. I’d say at least it’s going to cost them a lot of money to censor this book but it’s our taxpayer money so it’s actually costing us a lot of money to censor ourselves.

Where Not to Eat

I do love convinced so when somebody offers a list of places to avoid I’m often quite grateful. If you live in Tennessee Uncle posted a site that lists restaurants that ban firearms.

Personally after looking at their site I believe they’re trying to get restaurants to ban guns but really I think the site will be used more by gunnies to find places to avoid. I find it strange that there are movements out there to to bar non-felons with no history of mental illnesses or domestic violence from frequenting establishments. Even strange in my opinion is the fact some establishments agree with these movements. If I ever own a business I’d prefer customers whom I knew to not be felons and have no prior history of mental illness or acts of domestic violence.

A Slight Bias

The Supreme Court is going to be hearing a case in November dealing with California’s ban of “violent” video games to minors. A story making the rounds today is that 72% of adults approve of such laws. Anybody who has been in the gun rights scene long enough recognizes a bias survey when they see it.

In this case an advocacy group called Common Sense Media (their name of course being doublespeak as they lack common sense) were the ones who commissioned the study. Taking a look at their web site I think their mission page says a lot:

We believe in media sanity, not censorship.

Please tell me the difference between sanity and censorship. Censorship is censorship regardless of how you look at it. Trying to rephrase it as “media sanity” is a lot like rephrasing war as a policing action.

We believe parents should have a choice and a voice about the media our kids consume and create. Every family is different but all need information.

They believe parents should have a choice but also believe California’s law banning the sale of “violent” video games to minors is hunky dory. What if a parent is OK with their children playing “violent” video games (my parents for instance had no problem with me playing Doom or Duke Nukem 3D and I didn’t turn into a blood thirsty killing machine).

We believe that the price for free and open media is a bit of extra homework for families. Parents need to know about the media their kids use and need to teach responsible, ethical behavior as well as manage overall media use.

The price of freedom is always personal responsibility. This statement is one of the few I can say is correct. Parents need to know what their kids are doing and determine if they feel it is appropriate. If my memory serves me I believe that’s actually a parents job. Providing a mechanism for parents to learn about different types of media is good. On the other hand:

We believe appropriate regulations about right time, right place, and right manner exist. They need to be upheld by our elected and appointed leaders.

Doublethink alert! How can an organization be for the right of parents to make informed decision and also in favor of government telling parents what is right? Making informed decisions is the exact opposite of something in authority telling you what you will do. This right here is the ultimate problem they want parents to make specific decisions, not informed ones. You no longer have choice once a law is enacted besides obey or break said law.

If there is a law banning children from playing “violent” video games (as there are laws against children smoking cigarettes) for instance a parent no long as the choice to determine whether or not their child can play “violent” video games.

This organization is biased. Cases are different on a child by child basis and parents have to know what their children are doing and if they find it appropriate. For instance Common Sense Media state:

Media violence is especially damaging to children under 8 because they cannot easily tell the difference between real life and fantasy, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology

I never had any such problem as a child. I knew that shooting Dr. Wily’s robots in MegaMan 2 was fantasy violence. When I watched Transformers I understood Optimus Prime sending a laser blast through Decepticon scum was fantasy. Other children may not be able to determine such things though and in that case the parents need to make a decision on whether to allow their kids to play or watch such things. Making a law just fucks everybody over and gives the government more power to determine how you will live you life.

Citing People for Being Self-Sufficient

How’s this for fucked up? A man was cited for growing too many vegetables on his own land:

The county says Miller grows more crops on his land than allowed under zoning regulations. Code enforcement officers began ticketing him in January for the zoning violation and for allegedly having unpermitted employees on the property.

Please try to remember that you may have paid for the land but the government actually owns it.

Problems with Google Results Contradicting Your Religious Views

Are you so zealous in your religious beliefs that you get angry every time Google presents you a result from a page that doesn’t specifically agree with your religion? Well there are search engines that cater to you.

Further proving if there is a market it will be filled. I find it amusing to say the least that there are people who actually are so zealous in their belief that they try to remove any outside input that clashes with their beliefs. I wonder if these are the same people who stop being friends with people they find out subscribe to evolutionary theory.

Android Fragmentation

I believe this will mark the third post I’ve made bitching about Android. Why do I spend so much time complaining about it? It’s quite simple, I really like the OS. My Evo 4G is a pretty awesome phone overall. But Google and carriers have been making some questionable decisions when it comes to Android that make it difficult to use and develop for.

Engadget has a great blurb posted titled Engelligence: Will carriers destroy the Android Vision? One of the key features of Android is it’s open source. This means anybody can download the source code an modify the operating system to their heart’s content. Google keeps some of the applications closed source such as Google Maps so they can add some value to the OS but overall you’re free to do as you wish with it.

Unfortunately this also means carriers have the ability to do whatever they want with it. Why is this unfortunate? Because they do stupid things. AT&T lock out all non-Market applications while Verizon recently switched out Google search for Bing. Basically having a phone that runs Android doesn’t guarantee anything, the carriers may have changed any number of features on the phone.

Hardware manufacturers have also been a pain in the ass. For every awesome phone like the Evo 4G, Droid X, and Nexus One there is at least one piece of shit device that runs Android 1.6. This is a headache for developers because you have no idea what version of the OS people will be running and really need to attempt making your applications run on a wide variety of Android versions. Android 2.x has made some good in grounds but many phones are still on 2.1 and not the newer 2.2. Of course that falls back to the whole point I previously made about hardware manufacturers being willing to drop support for one of their devices a short while after introducing it.

We we’ve learned with Windows fragmentation is a pain in the ass. Sure Windows 7 has some awesome new features you would like to utilize in your application but can’t because a majority of your customer base is still running Windows XP. There is something to be said about a manufacturer who controls both the hardware and software as can be seen with the Nexus One. Even though it’s no longer being sold to consumers the Nexus One is the flagship Android device because Google continues to maintain it with timely updates and didn’t give the carriers a chance to mess with it.

I Think There is More to This Story

I read the summary of a story on the BBC and have come to the conclusion we have some missing information:

A US man has killed himself after shooting dead five people, including his wife and stepdaughter, during an argument about his breakfast.

I’m guessing the man was mentally disturbed. This story also provides another example as to what relying on the police to arrive in a timely manner isn’t a good defensive strategy:

Neace apparently waited an hour for the police to arrive before shooting himself; police heard the shot as they drove up to the trailer.

You also have to appreciate this part:

Breathitt County is in Kentucky’s rural eastern region, where gun ownership is widespread.

Let me rephrase that for you, “The United States, where gun ownership is widespread and we’re proud of it!” What a lame attempt at trying to shove a little piece of anti-gun propaganda into a story. I’m sure the author believes if a story involving the improper use of firearms is being printed he’s duty bound to include some blurb about widespread gun ownership at a mechanism to place the thought into readers’ heads that high gun ownership means high gun crime rates. Prick.

This story is another example of a crazy nut job being a crazy nut job. Sometimes you just can’t avoid insanity in daily life. But hey, this is why I carry a gun when I go for breakfast, dinner, lunch, and every waking moment of the day that I can.

Be Careful What You Post Online

I’m sure some of you reading this enjoy the use of Facebook Places and Foursquare. I’m sure you also enjoy posting about future upcoming vacations and whatnot so your friends will be jealous of your sweet week in Hawaii. You’ve probably noticed by now that I don’t really post when I’ll be away. If there is some reason I’m unable to create new posts on here I’m vague as Hell as to why (maybe it’s a heavy work load, maybe it’s a vacation, who knows). This is the same reason I disable the ability for others on Facebook to check me into locations via Places and it’s because of smart assholes like these:

Nashua police are crediting an alert off-duty police officer who heard fireworks with cracking a burglary ring that targeted homes known to be empty because of Facebook postings.

Criminals being ever vigilant have been using peoples’ postings online to figure out when they were away from home so said criminals could break in and rob the domiciles. Granted most criminals are smart enough to watch a place to determine when a person goes to work or otherwise leaves home on a schedule but generally they can’t tell when somebody is leaving for an extended period of time. It’s information such as this that you never want to hand to the enemy.