Month: December 2010

You Just Don’t Get it Do You

Wikileaks wikileaks Wikileaks… did you hear about Wikileaks? The Air Force has decided that they will prove themselves to not be hypocrites and only block Wikileaks. Now they’re blocking several publications that released information on the leaked cables:

Air Force users who try to view the websites of the New York Times, Britain’s Guardian, Spain’s El Pais, France’s Le Monde or German magazine Der Spiegel instead get a page that says, “ACCESS DENIED. Internet Usage is Logged & Monitored,” according to a screen shot reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The notice warns that anyone who accesses unauthorized sites from military computers could be punished.

The Air Force said it had blocked more than 25 websites that contained the documents, originally obtained by the website WikiLeaks and published starting late last month, in order to keep classified material off unclassified computer systems.

I don’t think the Air Force really gets it. Once something is online you can’t censor it, you can prevent people from seeing it by blocking a few sites, the information has spread out to more sites than you can ever hope to censor. Once information has his the Internet it’s game over as far as controlling it. The only real option available to the Air Force is the creation of a white list of sites that it’s employees can access as opposed to their current blacklist of sites you can’t access.

Springfield XD(m) 3.8 Compact Released

It appears as through Springfield Armory has actually listened to the comments made by their customer base and forwarded that information to HS in Croatia. Some time ago Springfield announced the release of the XD(m) 3.8 which was advertised as an ideal solution for concealed carry. The problem laid in the fact that the barrel may have been shorter but the grip, the hard part of the gun to conceal, was still full sized.

Springfield has now announced a “compact” version of their compact gun. Basically it’s a standard XD(m) 3.8 with roughly one inch shaved off of the grip length. Personally this is what I think the 3.8 should have been from the word start, it’s nice to see it get released in this configuration.

Smartphones and Battery Life

Since I’m on the comparison of Android and iOS kick I might as well talk about battery life. Most reviews of high-end Android devices knock the reviewed device for having poor battery life. I know the biggest hit against the Evo 4G is it’s battery life. My iPhone has had great battery life compared to my Evo giving me two days instead of one on a single charge (I count battery life in number of days before needing to recharge the phone, my Treo 755p got roughly three days).

There are many things to consider when comparing battery life including the storage capacity of the battery. The other major factory in battery life is the operating system and applications. The iPhone’s multi-tasking capabilities are… poor to say the least. If you want to run something in the background that Apple hasn’t provided a specific service for you have up to 10 minutes (the iPhone allows an application to run for 10 minutes in the background before suspending it).

Android on the other hand allows true multi-tasking. Any application is spawn a service that can run in the background even when the main application is no longer being displayed. This gives Android far more flexibility. Allowing real multi-tasking can also take a toll on the battery life as a runaway process can run the CPU at 100% and turn your battery life into a mere couple of hours. Personally I find the tradeoff worth it as any application that slaughters your battery life is poorly written and really the fault of the developer, not the device.

What I blame Android for is it’s poor built-in battery life reporting tool. On the Evo if you go under Settings->About Phone there is an item called Battery Life. This little application tells you the rough percentage of battery charge remaining and what has been using the battery life. This reporting tools does an abysmal job unfortunately.

I still carry my Evo around and use it as a portable Wi-Fi hotspot (which it works great as). I noticed when I returned home last night the phone was reporting the battery was almost completely dead. Usually this means some application is going crazy either pulling down data or racking up the CPU. A simple reboot of the phone generally takes care of this but I’m more of a curious person and wanted to know exactly what process was draining my battery.

Well the battery usage reporting tool did say it was the Android system that was using a majority of my power… of course that’s a catchall for every application on the device. The battery usage tool lumps every application under the Android system category and does not breakdown by individual application. In fact it’s not possible with Android’s built-in battery usage tool to see how much CPU time (and thus a rough estimation of battery life) an individual application has used. This makes finding the rough process difficult if not impossible.

I really like the fact Android has true multi-tasking and accept the responsibility that comes with such flexibility. But I’d also like a mechanism to see how much power each individual application is sucking down. Having such information would allow me to determine if an app I downloaded was poorly written and remove it. As it sits now you practically have to download an app, test it for a day, see the impact on battery life, and hope it doesn’t screw up later down the road.

How is This Man a Supreme Court Justice

A piece has been posted about Supreme Court Justice Breyer and his views on the right to keep and bear arms:

Breyer wrote the dissent and was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He said historians would side with him in the case because they have concluded that Founding Father James Madison was more worried that the Constitution may not be ratified than he was about granting individuals the right to bear arms.

Madison “was worried about opponents who would think Congress would call up state militias and nationalize them. ‘That can’t happen,’ said Madison,” said Breyer, adding that historians characterize Madison’s priority as, “I’ve got to get this document ratified.”

Therefore, Madison included the Second Amendment to appease the states, Breyer said.

I think somebody needs to look a little more into our history (in fact here’s a good book and no that’s not an affiliate link). The right to keep and bear arms originated from the fact the citizenry were seen as the ultimate check against government tyranny. Arming the citizenry was combined with using a militia system instead of a standing army (which the founders saw as a threat to liberty).

In order for the citizenry to be a check against government tyranny the citizenry must be equally or better armed than the government. This is no longer the case as we have a standing army and restrictions against what a mere citizen such as you and me and obtain. Maybe coincidentally our government has become more and more tyrannical since World War II and the passing of the National Firearms Act (which restricted civilian access to machine guns, explosives, and other fun things).

Breyer claims to cite history but like most history taught in schools today it is revisionist history. If you look at the writing of our founders they were adamant that people have the right to keep and bear arms. They talked time and time again about the right of the people to rise up and revolt against a tyrannical government. Our founders used European countries as examples of what happens when citizens are denied the right to keep and bear arms. Nowhere did any founder father claim the second amendment was inserted only to appears the states.

How did Breye become a Supreme Court Justice? It certainly wasn’t because of his understanding of history.

Stasi App

I don’t know what to think about this one but the implications are frightening. Via Dvorak Uncensored I was lead to an article on a site I generally take with a grain of salt. The only reason it’s getting mentioned on here is the article is about a Stasi App for the iOS platform and I actually found it.

I’m calling it the Stasi App because the claim of the application developers is the app is integrated with services from various departments in the United States government. If the app does what it claims to do then it runs akin to the secrete police of the East Germany. Basically the app is supposed to follow the Department of Motherland Fatherland Homeland Security’s, “If you see something, say something” program. It supposedly allows you to report “suspicious activity,” “report crime,” and generally become a member of the secret police.

You’ll notice I’ve been careful with my language and constantly saying things in a tense that isn’t accusatory. The reason for that is because I doubt this app does what it claims to. I’d actually have to download it and try it to know for sure but there is no way in Hell I’m putting something like this onto my devices. One of the red flags is the fact the terror threat Crayola color guide is included even though that’s been dumped as the only color in the crayon box was orange.

Still such an idea is frightening to say the least. The fact somebody thought this was a good idea, made an application, and then made it available for download is scary. It’s good to see it’s been rated very poorly with people citing 1984 (why does our government have such a hardon for that book?). I do agree it is very 1984-esque right down to the doublespeak name of the app.

Honestly if I were Apple I’d have rejected such an app on grounds of it being too reminiscent of actions taken in socialist nations to control citizenry. Apple has rejected applications for less after all.

Mandatory Health Care

A Virginia federal judge just ruled the clause in the Insurance Company Enrichment Act requiring peasants citizens of the United States to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional:

Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled Monday for the state’s claim that the requirement for people to purchase health care exceeds the power of Congress under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause or under the General Welfare Clause.

“It is not the effect on individuals that is presently at issue — it is the authority of Congress to compel anyone to purchase health insurance,” wrote Hudson, who was appointed to the federal bench in 2002 by President George W. Bush.

I’m glad somebody understands the fact that the federal government doesn’t have the power to put a gun to your head and make you purchase something. What’s interesting are the reactions from my liberal friends. Many are citing Social Security and Medicare as validation for the clause in the Insurance Company Enrichment Act. I don’t quite understand how using two unconstitutional programs as justification for another unconstitutional program really works.

Does that means it’s OK if I break into their home and steal their television if I’ve already broken in and stolen their computer and stereo? Two wrongs usually don’t make a case for doing yet another wrong.

I am also at a complete loss as to how somebody can justify government theft. Each of the programs mentioned in this post give the government the authority to use their monopoly on force to coerce you into buying into something. It’s interesting that these same people are against anybody besides the government stealing from them, but once it is the government that theft is deemed OK. There has to be come major cognitive dissidence to believe that.

Either way I hope this ruling actually amounts to something since the Republicans already “compromised” with the Democrats and agreed to fund the Insurance Company Enrichment Act until September (you guys really only want to hold those seats for a short while huh?).

So How About that Microstamping

Somebody by the name of Ronni Chase was apparently murdered by a person using a firearm… in California which is impossible because they have such strict gun control laws. It seems one of the “mysteries” surrounding the murder was the lack of shell casings at the scene of the crime. Well the good boys at the local police department have finally come up with an explanation as to why there aren’t any shell casing:

Officials believe that the gun used in the slaying of Chasen was a .38-caliber revolver, a fact that would explain why no shell casings were found at the scene of the crime.

In revolvers such as a .38 caliber, officials explain, shell casings remain in the chamber after firing rather than being discharged at the shooting scene.

Well, no shit. That’s some mighty find investigating there. Lord knows it would take me a few days to figured that one out.

But this post isn’t here to dwell on the fact the powers of observation of some are in constant question. I want to have a brief discussion on something that anti-gunners have had a hardon for, microstamping. According to the anti-gunners microstamping is this amazing technology that marks the casing fired from a handgun with a serial number. Using this microstamped serial number police can trace the firearm used in a crime back to the owner. The anti-gunners like this technology so much they are pushing for laws to require such technology in every state of the Union. California is looking to pass one of these laws but are figuring out the actual implementation of this technology is pretty much impossible.

Those of us with a clue on firearms looked at this proposal and rolled our eyes. Hitmen aren’t stupid, in fact any successful hitman is actually pretty smart. They found a “loophole” to the microstamping laws even before they were laws. This “loophole” is called a revolver. Amazingly a revolver doesn’t just toss it’s brass every which direction, it keeps them in the chamber. This means no shell cases are left behind (as the police in the story figured out) and thus any microstamped serial number is going to be worthless. This is where the anti-gunners will probably push for a law requiring revolvers to automatically eject their brass upon firing because they’re morons who don’t know the first thing about firearms.

I’ll also mention that the media is going to shit bricks when they find out about our other “loophole,” brass catchers.

A Job Well Done

I don’t know if I can even add anything to this:

Kansas City police officers mistook a backfiring van for gunshots and shot at the van and eventually shot out the windows of their patrol car Thursday night at Interstate 435 and Gregory Boulevard.

Officers said around 6 p.m., police responded to a report of shots being fired. When two officers arrived, they heard what they believed to be shots fired in the area near a white van.

During the incident, it was discovered the sounds were not gunfire but the van backfiring.

Congratulations boys on a job well done. I predict medals being passed all around for your heroics.

GSM vs. CDMA

It’s almost been a month of using the iPhone and thus AT&T. AT&T (along with T-Mobile) is a GSM network while Sprint (along with Verizon) is a CDMA network. For the end user the difference isn’t very noticeable in most cases although if you’re in the Midwest you’ll likely noticed better coverage with CDMA.

GSM has two major advantages over CDMA for the end user. The first advantage is the fact CDMA phones use a SIM card which can be taken out of one phone and inserted into another (so long as the other phone will work on the first phone’s network). If you want to swap CDMA phones the process is generally more difficult (for example on Sprint you need to log into your Sprint account online and enter in a series of numbers on the new phone). The second advantage is the fact on a GSM phone you can use both the voice capabilities and data at the same time. With a CDMA phone if you’re talking to somebody you can’t use data and if you want to use data you can’t call somebody. Even though there is no reason for this Sprint has even locked the Evo 4G into not allowing voice usage and 4G data usage at the same time (with 3G it’s a limitation of the hardware/protocol while with 4G the restriction is purely artificial).

Well it dawned on me when somebody called me and asked a question that required I look something up. I told them, “Hold on a second I’ll look it up and call you ba… wait hold just a second” and discovered the wonders of a phone that can use voice and data at the same time. Huge advantage.

I also learned that there apparently isn’t any additional cost to use call forwarding on AT&T, just just consumes your minutes. That means when I travel back home (where I have no AT&T coverage but have Sprint coverage) I can set my iPhone to forward calls to my Evo without having to rack up Sprint’s 20 cents a minute for forwarding calls charge.

There certainly are downsides to AT&T (their data plan is fucking horrible compared to Sprint’s) but there are also some upsides.