Month: September 2010

Since It’s No Longer Shiny and New

I generally refuse to do any reviews on devices until I’ve had them at least a month. Sure it means I don’t get to be the first out with reviews but it does mean the initial, “Oooohhh shiny” phase has worn off. Well I’m finally at that stage with my Evo 4G and although I love many things about the phone I have a list of major bugs that don’t seem to be getting fixed anytime soon.

As I’m mentioned the biggest bug that bites me in the ass is after installing the Android 2.2 update I can no longer automatically synchronize multiple GMail accounts. It seems I’m not alone. My phone is setup with two GMail accounts. The primary account automatically syncs correctly but the second account only syncs when I go into the GMail app and manually refresh. That’s a pretty big annoyance considering this is supposed to be Sprints flagship 4G phone.

The second problem I have deals with my work calendar. Some time back my work calendar got mucked up on my phone and it refused to continue automatically syncing. Figuring this was a simple sync issue I removed the account and attempted to re-add it. Well it seems that’s no longer an issue as when I tried to re-add the account it was unable to authenticate with our Exchange server. Luckily I had a backup of everything and restored the entire phone which brought Exchange e-mail syncing back at least. Of course there is a new hitch, if I tried to edit my Exchange account’s settings the account settings activity automatically drops me into the add account activity. I can’t add an account because it will fail to authenticate and I can’t edit the current account because the phone wants me to add an account before being able to edit it. Rock meet the hard wall.

What else is wrong? VPN, that’s what. I have a VPN server setup at home which I use to tunnel back when I’m out and about. Even though all my computers can successfully VPN home and even my Palm T|X from yesteryear can connect, my fancy Android phone can not. Looking into the matter it seems practically nobody can get VPN working on their Android phone and haven’t been able to for at least a year. This needs to be fixed.

We aren’t done yet. There is also a rather nasty calendar bug that overwrites the contents of the description field with the contents of the location field. As you can guess that’s pretty fucking annoying as well.

Did I mention that the new Android 2.2 update rendered the Last.fm client useless? I’m not sure what Google exactly changed in their audio APIs but it prevents Last.fm from buffering songs that are being downloaded. The app developer has been releasing updates like mad but has been unable to correct this issue. What happens is a song will play on Last.fm unless a data connection drops. At this point since the song can not be streamed and there is nothing buffered the song stops playing and when the connection reestablishes the next song automatically beings playing. I rather enjoyed driving around streaming my Last.fm client via Bluetooth into my Bluetooth FM transmitter. That’s no longer possible. Why not use Pandora instead you ask? Because ever since the 2.2 update Pandora’s audio quality sounds like shit. That’s saying something as I can’t tell the difference between a CD or an MP3 but I can tell the Pandora app sounds like complete shit over my Bluetooth transmitter.

And I have one last annoyance. Before the 2.2 update the on screen keyboard had a nice microphone button. When pressed you could speak and the phone would write what you said. The voice recognition was actually pretty decent although it left out punctuation. That button was replaced with a language selection button which is useless to me as I only know English. You can’t restore this functionality either.

The obvious solution would be to return to Android 2.1 right? Well yes but then many new applications won’t work on my phone as Google has been pushing out a lot of 2.2 only apps. Nice catch 22 isn’t it?

The last update for this phone was the upgrade to Android 2.2 which occurred around August 3rd. Since then nothing has been released to fix any of the above mentioned issues nor has any statement been made by Sprint, HTC, or Google. This is a throw back to my days used PDAs where companies would release a new device, support it for roughly six months, and then abandon the device entirely regardless of the bugs still giving users headaches. Frankly I’m rather pissed off. I love so much about the phone but the latest update (which is practically mandatory if you want to use any new applications) has hosed the phone and no fixes appear to be coming in. I’m really starting to think Google’s policy of letting phone manufacturers customize Android was a bad idea.

Dealing with Idiots

Are you outraged that some crazy asshole at some tiny religious gather spot is trying to get people to burn some books? Do you want said crazy asshole to go away? Well I have a solution, ignore the crazy asshole.

Crazy assholes are generally attention whores who do things to get their 15 minutes of fame. If you want them to go away just ignore their existence. Don’t cover them in the news, don’t talk about them with friends, don’t blog and tweet about them, don’t acknowledge their existence.

Using this method an outraged country could avoid having to be outraged as the crazy asshole cries himself to sleep because nobody is willing to pay attention to him. Remember crazy assholes know there is no such thing as bad publicity so every time you acknowledge they exist it encourages them a little more.

Global Warming will Kill Us All

Or not. It seems Dutch and United States scientists have come out and said the rate of ice loss from Greenland and West Antarctica should be halved:

In the last two years, several teams have estimated Greenland is shedding roughly 230 gigatonnes of ice, or 230 billion tonnes, per year and West Antarctica around 132 gigatonnes annually.

Together, that would account for more than half of the annual three-millimetre (0.2 inch) yearly rise in sea levels, a pace that compares dramatically with 1.8mm (0.07 inches) annually in the early 1960s.

But, according to the new study, published in the September issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, the ice estimates fail to correct for a phenomenon known as glacial isostatic adjustment.

This is the term for the rebounding of Earth’s crust following the last Ice Age.

Oops.

Mark Dayton on Guns

I’ve mentioned governor candidate Tom Emmers on here several times so far but have spoken little about his main opponent Mark Dayton.

Well it’s about time I got off of my lazy ass and posted some information on Dayton when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms. During a debate Emmers asked Dayton about his National Rifle Association (NRA) ‘F’ rating:

Tom Emmer: I do. I do. Ah, Senator Dayton you talk about deathbed conversions. Ive explained why I do the things I do. Ah, if you could just explain to me and everybody else here in the state of Minnesota, how is it that you can have an F rating from the NRA and you can sit up here and tell us that you’re gonna defend sportsmen’s rights, you’re gonna defend my right and my children’s right to hunt and fish in this state when you got an F from the NRA? Have you had one of your own ah, deathbed conversions? Well, we wont call it deathbed, but one of your own conversions that you’re sharing with us today?

Fair enough question. Dayton attempting to be a master of spin decided to make the following rebuttal:

Mark Dayton: Well, I had a D rating from the NRA in 1982 when I ran for the Senate. I had a two- an A rating in 2000. There were two principal votes you can look em up ah, when I was a Senator. One was ah, banning Cop Killer bullets. And, ah, one reason that I have the endorsement of the Minneapolis Police and Peace Officers Association, Representative, is because I respect the law enforcement men and women. I was on a ride-along last week to, as Ive been several times with a police officer in St. Paul. And those guys wear bulletproof vests every time they go out there. Men and women. And anybody who wants to go out there and see them put their lives on the line to protect us.

Dayton claims that he received his ‘F’ rating because he voted for a ban on “cop-killer bullets.” The funny thing is there is no such thing as “cop-killer bullets” do I did some digging. Since I’m willing to put a tremendous amount of work into avoid work I found somebody else who already did the digging for me. On the Let Freedom Ring site a great post was written going over what Dayton actually voted on to receive his ‘F’ rating.

He voted for an amendment to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act presented by the late Ted Kennedy. The amendment would have given the Attorney General the right to ban rifle ammunition he considered armor piercing:

SEC. 5. ARMOR PIERCING AMMUNITION.

(a) EXPANSION OF DEFINITION OF ARMOR PIERCING AMMUNITION.–Section 921(a)(17)(B) of title 18, United States Code, is amended–

(1) in clause (i), by striking “or” at the end;

(2) in clause (ii), by striking the period at the end and inserting a semicolon; and

(3) by adding at the end the following:

“(iii) a projectile that may be used in a handgun and that the Attorney General determines, pursuant to section 926(d), to be capable of penetrating body armor; or

“(iv) a projectile for a centerfire rifle, designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability, that the Attorney General determines, pursuant to section 926(d), to be more likely to penetrate body armor than standard ammunition of the same caliber.”.

In summary if the Attorney General determines a rifle cartridge to be more likely to penetrate body armor than “standard ammunition” he could label it armor piercing and make it a prohibited. That’s a damned side different than banning “cop-killer bullets.”

I did some additional searching to see what else came up and I found a few interesting things. Apparently at one time he was against registration but later was for some registration and licensing (namely of handguns). He also voted against legislation that would protect firearm manufacturers from lawsuits placed against them claiming said manufacturers are responsible for gun violence (kind of like suing an automobile manufacturer because somebody killed another person will driving under the influence).

Finally Dayton is for laws that prohibit firearms the possession of firearms within 1,000 feet of school property. Anybody who’s read this site or any other gun blog for any length of time knows that “gun-free zones” are ineffective and should be renamed “defenseless easy prey zones.” There is a reason many mass shootings occur on school grounds, the attackers know everybody there is unarmed and therefore easy prey.

Mark Dayton isn’t good on guns. He’s stated he owns firearms and is pro-hunting but hasn’t made any statement (that I’ve found) about being pro-self-defense, pro-right to carry, or in favor of castle doctrine (which his main opponent Tom Emmers is in favor of). I guess that’s yet another reason I won’t be voting for him.

DHS Network Security Failure

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) apparently doesn’t practice what they preach. The DHS is tasked with securing the computers and networks of other government agencies but are unable to security their own network. The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) found 1,085 instances of security holes.

I guess good enough for government work has an all new meaning now.

What Parents Should Actually Worry About

Bruce Schneier’s blog has a link to an interesting article. Based on surveys parents were asked what their top concerns were involving their children. The top five were:

1. Kidnapping
2. School snipers
3. Terrorists
4. Dangerous strangers
5. Drugs

School snipers? It’s nice to know mass shootings are no longer the concern but individual snipers take patient shots and individual targets. That’s certainly a relief. Oh, and terrorists made the list. This isn’t surprising but it should be. So what are the top five methods of children dying? Well nothing on the above list made the second list:

1. Car accidents
2. Homicide (usually committed by a person who knows the child, not a stranger)
3. Abuse
4. Suicide
5. Drowning

Funny that. Maybe parents need to learn some perspective.

Like a Good Neighbor

High Bridge Arms is the only gun store left in hippie central known as San Francisco. For five decades they’ve sold guns at their location but now, seeing an opportunity, a few people from the neighborhood are doing everything they can to deny the owner’s permit renewal (in San Francisco apparently you need a permit to sell firearms, who would have guessed). There’s a hearing today on whether or not the permit will be renewed but I just have to roll my eyes at a few of the comments made by those interviewed:

“We just want to see something in that space the neighborhood could use,” Ross said. “A dry cleaners, a restaurant, a bar. We’d take anything where people go to be part of a community.”

Being High Bridge Arms has been in business for five decades it seems the neighborhood is finding plenty of use for the store. You want a place where people can be part of a community? Try a gun store. The clientele at gun stores are generally part of the gun owner and shooting community. What community do people going to a dry cleaner or a restaurant belong to? You also have to love the fact that those who oppose the store are cowards unwilling to talk:

“I’ve never had anyone who opposed our shop walk in and introduce themselves to me,” he said. “It’s not like I’m doing something morally objectionable or unconstitutional.”

If you don’t like how the shop is being run maybe you should go in and have a chat with the owner. Wait I forgot we’re talking about Hippyville where the only thing those concerned have against the store is the fact that they cell firearms. Here’s some more ignorance:

“Aside from being opposed to a gun store, we don’t really think a gun store supports the neighborhood,” she said. “Now we finally have an opportunity to say guns don’t belong in the neighborhood. He can do it, there’s no doubt. But it would be nice for him not to be there anymore.”

It doesn’t support the neighborhood? Really? I didn’t realize the owner was delinquent on his taxes. Actually now that I think about it this story isn’t about problems with the tax collectors so it seems the owner is paying taxes, which support the neighborhood. The shop also provides jobs and apparently drums up enough customers to stay in business for half a century. What more can you ask for? I guarantee you that no other business that moves in there is going to do anything else to support the neighborhood.

I would also argue that guns belong in every community. How else are you doing to defend yourself? Oh that’s right you’re local police department have magical teleportation devices that allow them to respond instantly to a call about a breaking and entering.

You also have to appreciate the underhanded insult. “He can do it, there’s no doubt. But it would be nice for him not to be there anymore” roughly translates into, “I have an irrational hatred of guns and therefore I fucking hate the owner of that store and wish him dead. He can do what he wants but if it were up to me I’d nail him to a damned cross and murder his friends and family!” Hm, my translator seems to have fritzed out at the very end there but that’s basically what is being said.