Month: August 2011

After Two Years of Blogging I Still Don’t Get Invited to the Secret Gun Blogger Cabal Meetings

Sorry it’s Monday so the week’s news cycle has started up meaning I have to drop in some filler material to make my daily post count goal.

There exists an undefined rule of drama; any community that exists will eventually have to deal with drama. Normally I avoid these episodes of drama llama wrangling because it’s counter-productive and pointless. Yet there are times that the posts lighting off these wrangling events have something I want to talk about buried within and this is one of those case.

There is a post over at The Truth About Guns where Mr. Farago makes a claim that there is apparently some secret gun blogger blacklist which his site is placed upon. I’ve been running this blog for over two years now and I still don’t get invited to the secret cabal meetings between gun bloggers so maybe I’m simply out of the loop, but I’m not aware of any such blacklist. What makes this claim more dubious is the fact that Mr. Farago has provided no actual evidence. He claims that he won’t reveal the evidence because he received his information with a promise of anonymity as the price tag, but that doesn’t mean anonymized data can’t be released. Simply providing some kind of evidence would greatly help Mr. Farago’s claim that such a blacklist exists.

Whatever, that’s not my concern. There are two things I do wish to write about in regards to the linked post. First Mr. Farago mentions the supposed unwritten rule amongst gun bloggers to not link to anti-gun websites. I’m aware of no rule and decided to enact this strategy myself without exterior pressure. Why? Because I don’t want them to get any Google love from me and, more importantly, I don’t want to deal with the drama a pingback on an anti-gun site can often induce. In my defense I don’t throw the link out, I provide a raw link that people can copy and paste in their web browser, I simply refuse to surround the raw link with the required ‘a’ tag.

The next point I wish to discuss requires you to read the comments on the linked post. I have a strict policy of not discussion or mentioning religion on this blog unless it’s absolutely necessary to make a point about something else. There isn’t a post on this site that promotes and detest any religion or lack thereof. Once again there is a reason I have this police, because discussing religion can only lead to a pointless sidetrack debate. The two topics on my blacklist when conversing with people I don’t know are politics and religion. Due to the nature of this blog I discuss politics a lot, which is enough to start a shit storm. As I have enough of a shit storm to deal with the last thing I really want to discuss is religion as it’s just going to create a another shit storm. Ladies and gentlemen this blogger has a strict one shit storm limit! I submit the comments in the linked article as evidence of this claim.

One person was offended that Mr. Farago used the phrase “God given right.” As the offended person made that comment somebody was offended that the commenter was offended and thus a new post was created. What followed was a back and forth discussing religion which had nothing to do with the topic at hand. In addition to sparking an unrelated sidetrack conversation the discussion was also completely pointless. How so? Because religious debate is always pointless. Those who believe in religion will not be swayed and those who don’t believe in religion will not be swayed. Both sides demand proof and provide what they consider to be proof and neither is ever acceptable to the other side. Those who believe in religion have faith (that’s the definition of religion) while those who don’t believe in religion lack such faith. Neither side is going to convince the other that they’re wrong therefore the entire debate is pointless.

If you believe in a religion cool keep doing it. If you don’t believe in religion cool keep doing it. Unless somebody is willing to commit acts of violence in the name of their belief of lack thereof it’s not your concern.

Also I’d appreciate it if somebody would invite me to the secret gun blogger cabal meetings. I promise I won’t tell anybody about them.

The Personal Electronics Market Moves Fast

It was almost five years ago that the former CEO of Palm said is horribly inaccurate remark about Apple potentially entering the smartphone market:

Responding to questions from New York Times correspondent John Markoff at a Churchill Club breakfast gathering Thursday morning, Colligan laughed off the idea that any company — including the wildly popular Apple Computer — could easily win customers in the finicky smart-phone sector.

“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.'”

On January 9, 2007 Apple unveiled the iPhone. Between then and now, just under four years, the iPhone jumped to dominate the smartphone market while Palm was purchased by Hewlett-Packard who ultimately killed Palm’s legacy. That’s quite the roller coaster ride considering the short span of time that’s transpired.

When the State Fails to Provide Protection

Most gun bloggers spend a great deal of time talking about the fact that the police are not only under zero obligation to protect you but that they’re also completely ineffective in the task of protection. In general the police arrive to the scene of a crime far too late to perform the service of protection. This is why the right to self-defense is so important, you must be able to take the protection of your life into your own hands because nobody else will. Sadly protection is a market the state likes to claim a monopoly over and then dole out authorization to the populace as deemed appropriate (by the state of course).

Another market the state generally claims a monopoly over is that of delivering justice. This is rather interesting since the state doesn’t usually deliver justice, they deliver punishment. Justice would require that just compensation be provided to the victim by the criminal whereas punishment generally leaves the victim in no better shape then they were before the punishment was enacted (for example most victims of theft never get their property back nor receive compensation from the thief).

Those who seek to provide their own protection and seek justice are labeled vigilantes, which has an unnecessary negative connotation attached to it. I came across a very good article on Mises Daily talking about the American history of vigilantism, it’s benefits, and why people should rid themselves of their prejudice against vigilantes.

Although I urge you to read the article I’ll give a brief synopsis. The state claims a monopoly on both the protection and justice markets. History has proven that the state is incapable of providing either service leaving people without defense and justice. A vigilante is nothing more than a person who has taken responsibility to either defend themselves, their neighbors, or to seek justice for those who have been wronged. The key word being justice, this doesn’t mean seeking out the suspected criminal and murdering him but instead ensuring just compensation can be granted to the victim. Even though the state tries to tie the image of vigilantes to the likes of lynch mobs the comparison isn’t at all accurate as lynch mobs are just gangs of murderers seeking a desired target.

I’m not asking that you agree with this article but providing it primarily as food for thought. It’s a very interesting read and, I believe, deserving of your time.

I Love the Personal Electronics Market

I absolutely love the personal electronics market. The market has few regulations requiring expensive compliance with idiotic mandates compared to most other markets. Having fewer regulations in place means companies are free to spend a majority of their capital on making electronics cheaper, more powerful, and overall more effective. Case in point, there is an $80.00 Android phone in Kenya that seems to be selling very well:

It seems like just yesterday when only the slickest kid on the block had a smartphone, but now, this revolutionary gadget is selling like hotcakes in the developing world. Earlier this year, the Chinese firm Huawei unveiled IDEOS through Kenya’s telecom titan, Safaricom. So far, this $80 smartphone has found its way into the hands of 350,000+ Kenyans, an impressive sales number in a country where 40% of the population lives on less than two dollars a day.

Cellular phone technology has been taking off very well in much of Africa. In fact in many African countries cell phone minutes are being used as a form of currency. This is possible because cell phone technology across the board has only become more capable and less expensive through the years. The smartphone you hold in your pocket right now is far more powerful than many computers made available only a few years ago. Manufacturers exist in the market to fill every need form cheap burner phones to high end satellite phones. Most of this is thanks to the fact the governments of the world have mostly kept their noses out of the personal electronics market (once again, compare to most other markets where the government regulates everything).

Next Up, Precrime

The law enforcement community seems to like their tools to be creepier and creepier. We have everything from checkpoints where innocent civilians are accused of various crimes without cause (usually they’re accused of driving under the influence) to closed circuit cameras lining street corners in major metropolitan areas. Now the police of Santa Cruz, California are testing software that predicts where crimes will occur:

The arrests were routine. Two women were taken into custody after they were discovered peering into cars in a downtown parking garage in Santa Cruz, Calif. One woman was found to have outstanding warrants; the other was carrying illegal drugs.

But the presence of the police officers in the garage that Friday afternoon in July was anything but ordinary: They were directed to the parking structure by a computer program that had predicted that car burglaries were especially likely there that day.

The program is part of an unusual experiment by the Santa Cruz Police Department in predictive policing — deploying officers in places where crimes are likely to occur in the future.

There are two things I’ll note about this. First, relying on a computer program to deploy police officers for the entirety of a day seems like a bad idea as a criminal who figures out the algorithm would know where the police weren’t likely to be. Second, how long will it take until the output of this software becomes admissible in court as evidence?

The story states that the police didn’t actually catch the two suspects breaking into a car, they caught them looking inside of cars. Granted nine times out of ten that usually means those people are planning to break into a vehicle but until they actually have performed the action no crime has been committed. Wouldn’t it have been better to wait for the two suspects to actually perform a crime before arresting them? I say this both as a libertarian who’s disgusted by the fact somebody can be arrested for not actually breaking the law and as an engineer who works to ensure his software is properly tested.

How can the police know if the software works if they didn’t wait for the suspects to actually break into a car? All they know now is that the program was able to predict people would arrive in the parking garage and look inside of vehicles. That right there is a poorly executed test case and if I were one of the developers I’d be rather pissed at the officers’ execution of the test.

The story does mention that one suspect had an outstanding warrant and the other was carrying drugs (which isn’t a crime in my book). That’s all fine and good but the fact of the matter is these two situations only came to light after the police arrested the women for not actually doing anything. Due to that simply fact I would say everything else the police learned is irrelevant.

Furthermore I’d also say the software isn’t so much intelligent as simply programmed with a great deal of common sense:

On the day the women were arrested, for example, the program identified the approximately one-square-block area where the parking garage is situated as one of the highest-risk locations for car burglaries.

Wait… a structure which houses, potentially, hundreds of cars that remain mostly unprotected throughout the day is a likely spot for car burglaries? Well Hell’s bells everybody this software can figure out what any person with common sense could have told you without needing thousands of man hours in development time. I’m sure if you park a few police officers in the parking structure unannounced every day of the week you’re going to encounter quite a few people planning on breaking into other peoples’ cars (until the criminals figure out that the police are hanging around there every day, then those thugs will find a difference parking garage).

HP Announced the End of WebOS Device Operations

When I said things weren’t looking good for WebOS I didn’t think they were quite this bad. Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced that they will be discontinuing WebOS device operations:

In addition, HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.

And just like that Palm’s legacy is effectively dead. I guess there is always the possibility that HP will find somebody to license and utilize their fledgeling operating system but I’m doubtful. As it sits right now any manufacturer can use Android which is already incredibly popular, is being rapidly developed, and has a good application ecosystem. There seems little reason, in my opinion, for a manufacturer to license WebOS.

Although WebOS is an operating system with great potential the execution by those who’ve had it has been lackluster at best. When HP acquired Palm they continued executing the ill-fated plan Palm had started, which was to offer phones (and a tablets) nobody wanted. The Palm Pre and Palm Pre Plus performed poorly and the Palm Pre 2 fared even worse. Most companies would have decided to release a radically different device but HP instead decided to manufacture two new devices that were effectively Palm Pres; one in a smaller form factor and another in a larger form factor. The TouchPad was nothing more than an expensive iPad wannabe with buggy software and no available applications.

So long WebOS, you contained innumerable interesting ideas but interesting ideas alone are seldom enough to save a product from extinction.

A Novel Idea of Settling a Lawsuit

Sometimes people come up with some rather novel ideas. Notch, the guy who created the rather popular game Minecraft, is facing a lawsuit from Bethesda over his latest project titled Scrolls. Normally I don’t do any reporting on the video game industry but Notch presented an excellent idea for resolving this lawsuit that would be both cheap and effective:

I challenge Bethesda to a game of Quake 3. Three of our best warriors against three of your best warriors. We select one level, you select the other, we randomize the order. 20 minute matches, highest total frag count per team across both levels wins.

If we win, you drop the lawsuit.

If you win, we will change the name of Scrolls to something you’re fine with.

Regardless of the outcome, we could still have a small text somewhere saying our game is not related to your game series in any way, if you wish.

I’d say that’s a rather splendid means of resolving a conflict. Instead of paying lawyers millions of dollars to fight in a court of law you can hire some kids, pay them in game-related merchandise, and let everything be resolved via virtual death match. This is something companies need to seriously start considering.

Obama Can’t Take the Heat

I usually try to avoid criticizing politician’s character flaws as I prefer ripping apart their policies and political beliefs. Once in a while I’m willing to set aside this preference because the character flaw is either humorous or stupid enough that it’s worth noting; this is one of those times. It seem President Obama can’t take the heat as he was complaining about all the flak he’s received since getting seated in the Oval Office, even going so far as to say he’s received more criticism than Lincoln did:

“Democracy is always a messy business in a big country like this,” Obama responded. “When you listen to what the federalists said about the anti-federalists … those guys were tough. Lincoln, they used to talk about him almost as bad as they talk about me.”

People in Lincoln’s time only almost talked about Lincoln as bad as people of today talk about Obama? I guess that’s true… so long as you remove the fact that Lincoln was assassinated. Getting a bullet in the back of your head is probably one of the harshest forms of criticism that exists. Using this comparison makes Obama look like a whiny, sniveling, bitch (which he is).

Stop being a bitch Obama, you’re the president of an entire country. Thanks to your ability to issue executive orders you’re practically a dictator. Your life isn’t that bad and the criticisms you’ve been receiving are downright civil compared to the criticisms most members of Parliament in the United Kingdom receive from their fellow members. Suck it up and take it like everybody else does.

Jerry Doyle Fired for Pointing Out the Media’s Ignoring of Ron Paul

Did you know Jerry Doyle had a radio show? I sure as the Hell didn’t which is rather surprising since he played one of my favorite characters (Michael Garabaldi) on my favorite television show (Babylon 5). Still he had a radio show in which he apparently talked about conservative topics with at least some libertarian ideals. You’ll notice that I keep using past tense when referring to his radio show, that’s because the day after he brought up the fact that the media is blatantly ignoring Ron Paul he was slated to be replaced by a new show staring three neo-cons.

This shit is getting deep. I’m actually surprised Jon Stewart still has a show after pointing out the same thing.