Month: March 2011

Wisconsin Budget Bill Vote

In news certain to piss off a lot of people the Senate Republicans in Wisconsin voted on the controversial budget bill last night. Needless to say protesters were pissed and those of us who find granted monopoly coercion distressing are kind of happy.

What I don’t understand is why the protesters aren’t pissed at the Democratic “representatives” who left the pro-union people high and dry by fleeing to Illinois. If you are protesting on the side of the public union you were abandoned by the Democrats. The supposed reason we elect “representatives” is to advance our agendas at the capital. Advancing an agenda requires debate and that requires actually being present. That’s not when the Democratic “representatives” did, instead of facing hard work they ran away like cowards in the hope to gain martyrdom. Were I protesting on the side of the public unions I’d be fucking pissed and would have pushed for recall elections the second they left the state.

Although I’m in disagreement with the protesters I still absolutely love the civil disobedience going on.

Get Palm OS Running Under WebOS 2

Along with the new version of WebOS comes some other great news, somebody has found a hack to get Palm OS running under WebOS 2. If you’ve been following WebOS to any extent you know HP/Palm removed the Palm OS ROM from WebOS 2 which basically killed Classic (Classic is a Palm OS emulator application).

This was also disturbing news for me. WebOS doesn’t have a lot of applications currently available meaning there are some massive gaps in their software library. For example there isn’t an application for WebOS that allows you to edit Microsoft Office documents. To fill in these gaps I’ve been using the Palm OS emulator as there was software released for Palm OS to do practically anything.

I’ve not had time to try this hack but I will report back on it when I do. Either way it’s great news and greatly increases the functionality of WebOS.

WebOS 2.1 Released

Good news everybody who has a Palm Pre 2 (you know that other guy and me), HP/Palm has released WebOS 2.1. It’s an over the air update meaning your device will find it and automatically notify you of its availability. Needless to say I’ve not had much time to play with it but the update doesn’t seem all that significant.

The main additions is the inclusion of voice dialing and exhibition mode. Voice dialing is pretty self-explanatory but it allows you to dial a number by holding down either volume button and then speaking the name of the person you wish to call. Exhibition mode is rather neat as it allows your Pre 2 to display information when it’s placed on a Touchstone. The information it displays is configuration about mine is currently displaying my daily agenda. It will be a bit before any developers make real use of this feature but I can imagine some cool things coming down the pipe (I know I have an idea on how to utilize it that I’ll likely be working on in the near future).

As HP/Palm aren’t big on releasing any changelogs for WebOS updates in a timely manner I’m not sure what else has been included in this update. I’m guessing not much.

iOS 4.3 Released

Last night Apple released the newest version of their iOS operating system. As it sits you can upgrade if you’re running an iPhone 3GS or GSM 4 (the CDMA iPhone 4 doesn’t get this update), iPad, third or forth generation iPod Touch, or an Apple TV. All support for the iPhone 3G appears to have been abandoned which isn’t surprising considering how Apple doesn’t really like supporting legacy products (although they seem to support their devices longer than most phone manufacturers).

So what’s changed? Most notable is Apple has now included Wi-Fi hot spot functionality… to those who have tethering plans. This allows you to turn your phone into a Wi-Fi access point. When a device connects to your iPhone it is able to use the iPhone’s data plan. Of course being you need a tethering plan (which I don’t get on AT&T since you pay by data usage you should be able to chose how you want to use your data) this feature is potentially very expensive.

Another feature is the ability to use iTunes Home Sharing. This feature simply allows your iOS device to access your iTunes library (podcasts, music, videos, etc.) if you’ve set it up to use iTunes Home Sharing. I can see this being nice if you have a media collection too large to place everything on your iOS device.

Under the hood Apple has included enhancements to Safari’s JaveScript engine, AirPlay improvements, HDMI-out capabilities (with purchase of the Apple 30-pin to HDMI adapter), and the ability to configure the iPad’s side switch to either be a mute switch or an orientation lock.

Needless to say nothing really Earth shattering was included but that is to be expected with a point release.

Xcode 4 Released

Bear with me everybody because today is going to be mostly geek news as every major company I follow has seen fit to release new versions of stuff. Apple has finally released the newest version of their integrated development environment (IDE), Xcode 4. I will say it’s a major update as practically the entire IDE has changed.

Apple seems to be moving from the separate window interface of yore to single window interfaces. Xcode 4 integrates most everything into a single window now including the console (which even using the single window interface of Xcode 3 was a separate window). Another thing Apple seen fit to do is integrate Interface Builder into Xcode. I don’t really see any upside or downside to this but it does remove an icon from my already crowded dock.

I’ve not determined if all the interface changes are for the best as I’ve only played with a tiny bit of it last night. I do find adding linked libraries to be more straight forward and I feel the debugging interface is improved. I’m still up in the air on the new way auto completion is done. Instead of simply filling in the word you’re typing with the most likely (to the IDE, probably not you) word Xcode 4 now presents a pop-up menu under what you’re typing with every potential option (think the Eclipse IDE). I’m finding the new method faster but also much more in your face.

As I said I’ve not had time to really play with it but so far I’m liking it. One thing I don’t like is the fact Apple now charges for the IDE unless you’re a registered developer (registered Mac and iOS developers still get it for free, which means I didn’t have to pay for the upgrade). They aren’t charging much, only $4.99, but it’s still a barrier for entry. An advantage of providing free developer tools is you’re more likely to get people willing to try developing software for your system. Most people don’t want to spend any money to try something they may or may not enjoy. Even Microsoft offers free version of their development tools in the form of Visual Studio Express. I haven’t a clue what made Apple decide to start charging for a previously free product.

The ATF Have Been Running Guns Since 2008

Man the hole keeps getting deeper for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms an Explosives (ATF). First they are caught providing guns to Mexican drug cartels and now documents have surfaced that the ATF has been doing this since 2008:

Multiple sources now tell CBS News the questionable tactics were used in more than one operation, and date back as far as 2008 in the Tucson area. One case was called “Wide Receiver.”

Sources tell CBS News licensed gun dealers often wanted no part of selling to suspicious characters who could be supplying the cartels.

But, sources say, ATF enlisted the gun dealers as paid Confidential Informants and encouraged them to sell even more.

“ATF has asked me to assist in an official investigation,” reads one agreement.

Gun salesmen closed the deals, and ATF watched and listened with recording devices.

Your tax dollars and government at work. It angers me to no end having to support an organization that is not only trying to restrict my rights but is also providing criminals with firearms while they claim they prevent exactly that. I think it’s obvious to anybody with cognitive capabilities that the ATF needs to be abolished.

American Health Care and the Free-Market

People often point to the American health care system is a failure of the free-market. The problem lies in the fact that the American health care system isn’t a free-market:

To start with, the American Medical Association (AMA) has had a government-granted monopoly on the healthcare system for over 100 years. It has intentionally restricted the number of doctors allowed to practice medicine so as to raise physician incomes artificially. The primary way it does this is by using the coercive power of the state to restrict the number of approved medical schools in operation. After the AMA created its Council on Medical Education in 1904, state medical boards complied with the AMA’s recommendation to close down medical schools.

The American health care system is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country. It’s a classic example of failure due to government interference in the free-market.

In the Absence of Guns

Anti-gunners are often fond of claims that eliminating guns will reduce violence crime. Of course that assumes there are no other weapons which as Egypt demonstrates isn’t the case:

“Hundreds of men carrying knives and swords entered Tahrir,” the AFP news agency quoted a report on Egypt’s state TV as saying.

The TV channel showed footage of hundreds of people involved in a stand-off and throwing stones at each other.

“A group of gangsters attacked us with stones, they seemed to be wanting us to leave the square,” Gamal Hussein, one of the pro-democracy protester, later told Reuters.

In the absence of guns the only thing that is guaranteed is the lawful and innocent are disarmed when the bad guys come with weapons.

History Class in Utah About to Get More Accurate

It seems the government of Utah is sick and tired of people claiming our country is a democracy and have passed legislation that will require Utah teachers to be accurate and call the United States a republic. Teachers will also be required to go over different form of government:

HB220 would require schools to teach students that the U.S. is a compound constitutional republic and about other forms of government such as pure democracy, monarchy and oligarchy along with political philosophies and economic systems such as socialism, individualism and free-market capitalism. The Senate passed the bill with no dissenting votes Monday.

This would be great as most students don’t even know what a fascist or socialist state even is. Sadly most students just yell fascist when the police are abusing their power and then talk about socialism as a great system we need to adopt in this country. Hopefully the Utah requirements involve teaching the fact that the United States no longer runs on a free-market system and that is our biggest economic problem besides spending more than we take in.