Imitation is The Sincerest Form of Flattery

That’s always been Microsoft’s policy. Unfortunately the parts Microsoft usually imitate are the parts that suck. Take for instance Windows Series 7 Phone 7 Series Phone Phone Series 7 Phone 7 Series. Microsoft it taking some queues from Apple but they’re the bad ones.

Apparently Windows Phone 7 Series will not allow multi-tasking, installation of application not provided by Microsoft’s market place, and will not accept removable storage. These have always been the weak points of Apple’s iPhone in my opinion. I like being able to multi-task. Sure it can drain battery life but hey I’ll deal with that to gain added functionality. So it still looks like I’ll be moving to WebOS or Android when I decide to change out my phone.

End Of An Era

Well I knew this day would come eventually but alas it’s still rather sad. I received the following e-mail today:

Dear Developers,

For more than a year, Palm’s primary focus has been on webOS devices and
development. As development for legacy Palm devices has transitioned to new
development under webOS, we have made the decision to put all of our
resources into webOS development support. To this end, the Palm Developer
Network site (https://pdnet.palm.com), which supported legacy PalmOS and
Windows Mobile development for past-generation Palm devices, will be taken
offline effective April 30th. The PDN developer forums will be taken offline on
March 31st.

If you would like to continue development on a platform similar to PalmOS and
would like assistance, we suggest that you contact ACCESS CO., LTD. at
http://www.access-company.com. ACCESS currently supports its own proprietary
Garnet OS platform, which is a variant of PalmOS 5. ACCESS may be able to
provide you with assistance under one of ACCESS’ own support or developer
programs. Please note, that ACCESS CO., LTD and Palm, Inc. are not related or
affiliated companies, and any assistance you may receive from ACCESS shall be
subject solely to ACCESS’ own terms and conditions.

If you have development support issues for Windows Mobile applications, please
visit the Microsoft Developer Network for Windows Mobile at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsmobile/default.aspx.

We thank all of you for your support of PalmOS devices over the years, and hope
that you are all enjoying developing for webOS. If you haven’t started developing
for webOS, please visit http://developer.palm.com to learn more! We think you’ll
love the new platform.

Best regards,

The Palm Developer Team.

It appears as though Palm OS is officially dead (No longer supported). I’m glad I already have copies of everything I’ve used while developing on Palm OS. I really wish Access (The owners of Palm OS) would open source the aging system but I doubt that will ever happen.

On the upside they are also dropping support for Windows Mobile. Good riddance!

Fun With The Census

I’m sure those of you reading this site regularly realize I like to mess with people. I also recognize the census as an enumeration of the population only. On the other hand you get fined major change for not answering questions and fined even more if you answer untruthfully. So here is my guide to messing with the Census Bureau while filling out every answer and doing so truthfully.

If something requires a number remember Roman numerals are fun. This site has a hand decimal to Roman numeral converter you can use.

Filling out your phone number is different than you wages of course. Phone numbers usually appear 555-555-5555 but we never use the numbers as a value. Instead we use the numbers positionally saying the number is “five, five, five,” etc. So feel free to fill out the phone number as VVV-VVV-VVVV.

Gender is pretty straight forward unless of course your a hermaphrodite. I believe in that case you need to check both boxes. Also if you’re transgender it’s unclear if you are supposed to put down your genetic gender or your identified gender. So for those of you this applies to have fun with that.

You’ll notice the census is really keen on race. Well my race is human. I think that applies to everybody filling out the form.

I didn’t get any extended portion so I don’t know what fun you could have with that. But those are some fun games you can play with the Census Bureau. Also note this isn’t legal advice, it’s advice on how to fuck with people. If you fuck with somebody they are likely to fuck with you back so remember that.

Poroposed Assembler Opcodes

Obviously this is only going to apply to the truly geeky watching this and most of those people have already seen this but it’s still funny. Some of the opcodes I really like and would find useful:

BAC – BRANCH TO ALPHA CENTAURI

You never know when you’ll have to branch to data on Alpha Centauri. Heck I’d use this all the time.

CH – CREATE HAVOC

Regardless of what some people believe this instruction doesn’t actually exist in your computer.

CMD – COMPARE MEANINGLESS DATA

Hey look it’s Al Gore’s opcode!

DBZ – DIVIDE BY ZERO

This would solve a lot of crashes created by new programmers.

ECO – ELECTROCUTE COMPUTER OPERATOR

Oh if only I had this instruction available when people called me for computer help.

HCF – HALT AND CATCH FIRE

Good instruction for the truly paranoid out there.

MWAG – MAKE WILD-ASSED GUESS

Al Gore’s other beloved instruction.

UP – UNDERSTAND PROGRAM

If only that existed.

For those of you who aren’t computer geeks realize this is the type of humor that some of use laugh at. Yet I know it’s sad.

Broadband For Free*

Tam at View From the Porch brings up an article dealing with the recent decision by the United States government to provide broadband for everybody. The article is about a whiny ninny web developer who is crying because she doesn’t have broadband:

Like a photographer without a camera, or a mechanic who doesn’t own a car, Kelli Fields is a webmaster without high-speed Internet access.

By day, the 42-year-old uses a broadband connection at work to update a university’s Web site, which she built and codes from scratch.

But when she goes home at night, the rural Oklahoman struggles with a dial-up Internet connection so slow, she does chores to pass the time while Web sites load. Her high school-age son is so fed up with the glacial pace of their Internet connection that he asks his mom to update his Facebook page from the office.

Let’s look at this shall we. My father is a mechanic and he owns his own shop. I can tell you one thing the government never provided him with a car, tools, hoist, alignment rack, or even a front desk. Likewise I don’t know a single photographer who has a camera purchased for them by the government. But using these examples this story tries to convince you that the government should be providing Ms. Prissy with boradband for her work? Why does a web developer get special treatment?

Oh because she’s in a rural area where she only has dial-up. Let me check if the government will provide tools to an auto shop that’s in a rural area away from any tool shop. Nope. Will the government provide cameras to photographers in locations far away from a camera store? Nope. Hm I guess those situations still remain irrelevant.

Stop running to the government every time you need something. Oh and I love this part:

She could install a satellite and connect to the high-speed Internet, but the installation fee is $300, and she said she can’t afford that right now. She’s been waiting for wired broadband to come to her home for five years, and she holds out some hope that the network will get to her eventually.

She can’t afford $300.00 but wants broadband Internet? How much money does she think it’ll cost to run wired broadband out to her rural house? Here’s a hint, a fucking lot. Of course I’m sure she’s fine with it so long as every tax payer in America is footing the bill and not just her. God this entitlement society pisses me off. And I haven’t even touched on the subject of government provided and therefore controlled Internet access.

* And by free I mean you’re paying for it through your tax dollars.

Second Amendment Rights For Sale

Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell points out an Arizona training company called Insight Firearms Training Development (Not to be mistaken for InSight Firearms of Seattle) is writing customers to oppose Arizona’s House Bill 2347 and Senate Bill 1108. These bills are the ones on the table that would allow Arizona citizens to carry without having to obtain a permit.

Apparently Insight Firearms Training Development make enough money off of permit training that they want to ensure Arizona doesn’t becomes a true right to carry state. I find this sickening to a degree that I can’t put into words. These are the type of people who aren’t helping the cause and those of us for the second amendment should boycott such companies into bankruptcy.

Robert Buettner’s Orphan Series

I’ve been promising to do more posts on Godless Sodomite Fiction and thus far failed to deliver much. Well I’m going to help correct that slightly right here and right now. For those of you whom like military science fiction I present you with a great series written by Robert Buettner called the Orphan or Jason Wander series (Yeah it doesn’t really have a series title like The Lost Fleet or Vampire Earth series. Also note that the link isn’t a referral link.). For the purposes of this post I’m going to call it the Orphan series to make life easy on me.

Buettnet’s Orphan series consists of five books: Orphanage, Orphan’s Destiny, Orphan’s Journey, Orphan’s Alliance, and Orphan’s Triumph. The entire series follows the life of Jason Wander who starts as a new military recruit in book one and ends up retired at the end of the series.

I’m not going to go through each book, that’s up to you if you decide to read the series. But I do have to go through Orphanage to establish a groundwork upon which to write about the series. Although there are going to be slight spoilers they will consist of nothing more that can be obtained by reading the back of the book’s cover.

Anyways Orphanage is a tribute to Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. The stories are very similar and that’s by plan not a lack of originality. An alien species had parked its butt Ganymede and decided to start throwing really large rocks at Earth. The rocks are guided and the alien race has the ability to render our nuclear weapons inert. Needless to say Terra gets pummeled pretty hard. Enter Jason Wander, a kid with no real outlook on life. As is typical in a book an event happens that changes his life (Because that’s what makes a book interesting and worth reading). See Jason is a fuck up and keeps appearing before a specific judge. The judge gets sick of seeing Jason’s ugly face and finally gives him a choice, join the military or go to prison. Jason chooses the first option and enlists in the army.

Meanwhile the aliens keep hating on Earth. Eventually Jason’s family is killed leaving him an orphan (Clever huh? I bet you didn’t see that coming when you read the name of the series.). Shit happens and eventually he finds himself recruited for a mission that is heading to Ganymede to fuck the alien’s collective shit up. The mission consists only of soldiers who are war orphans and hence are felt to be the most pissed off and therefore qualified to kill alien scum.

That’s the premise of the first book. Needless to say Buettner’s tribute to Starship Troopers is beautifully executed and he adds enough of his own ideas and story elements to make Orphanage a great book that doesn’t feel too much like it’s idol. In the next four books the story comes into it’s own.

One of my pet peeves in books is poor pacing. I’m not a fan of boring parts in books and very often stop reading a story for quite some time because I hit a lull. Buettner shows an amazing skill for proper pacing. The end of each chapter leaves something interesting to be unlocked in the next one. I always found it hard to put these books down because the answer to something I was dying to know seemed to lay on the next few pages. When I obtained me answer an new puzzle would present itself and I found myself having to read more yet. Putting down these books and going to sleep required an act of extreme will.

Buettner also does an excellent job on character development. Too many series end up having characters stagnate in later volumes. The Orphan series seems to always manage to further embellish characters without making it appear over the top. Jason goes from being a worthless punk kid to a grown man capable of accomplish his work. Other characters are given equal amounts of attention as well. It’s rare for me to have strong memories of side characters but I can rattle off the names and general situations involving almost all of the major side characters in this series.

Of course being a science fiction godless sodomite fiction series there are plenty of gadgets and gizmos. The practicality of the advanced technology mentions written by Buettner impress me. The soldiers in the series wear powered armor called Eternads. The armors contain water purifiers, water storage systems, air conditioners, heaters, oxygen generators, and even a pad on one arm for wiping snot from your nose. All of these features of powered by a battery that recharges itself via the movements of the person wearing the Eternad. Because of the nature of the aliens being fought the guns later in the series fire flechette ammunition.

Being this is a military science fiction series geopolitical politics comes into play. Many events from Jason’s career are brought to light including those involving being a military “consultant” for other countries. This is more important of an event at the series progresses but I can’t really expand on it without giving away plot points and spoiling some of the series.

I really like Buettner’s portrayal of soldiers. He’s very Heinleinesqe in that he has a positive portrayal of the foot soldier. It’s a nice change in pace from many stories that portray soldiers as wanton killing machines with the IQ of a wild boar. I do appreciate this aspect of the series.

Anyways the series is a great way to spend some quality time reading. I urge you to take a look at the first book if you’re into science fiction of any kind.

Political Party Nonsense

I try to avoid talking about politics in a generic term here because it’s a boring topic that only incites anger. But after some berating for not being a member of “The Right Party” I thought I’d drop some note on here. Everybody who knows me eventually learns that I describe myself as a libertarian. Notice the lower case “l” there? Libertarian with a capital “L” is the name of a party while libertarian with a lower case “l” is a political belief.

This is important as I’m not a member of any party. People seem unable to wrap their heads around this concept though. For instance although I’m a libertarian I attended the Republican caucus. Why? Because I want to see Tom Emmers get the candidacy for the Republican party. I work with individuals who agree with my ideals (At least as close to my ideals as I can get but more on that in a minute). I don’t give a wooden nickle if a candidate is a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green, or even a member of the Communist Party (Granted most of these parties are unlikely to have a candidate I support), if they agree with what I believe I’ll support them.

And this my friends brings us to the Tea Party. Notice the capital letters? Yes I’m not talking about the tea party movement but the various political entities call themselves the Tea Party. I have nothing against these groups but my rant is going to be focused on certain individuals. Many people who have become disenfranchised with the Republican and Libertarian parties have moved to one of the various Tea Parties. I got into a conversation with one of these people a while back. His belief was the Republican party is corrupt (No duh, it’s a political party. They’re all corrupt.) and the Libertarian Party is now evil because they let Bob Barr run as their presidential candidate. That meant he had to jump ship to another party because Odin forbid you actually try to correct the problems in a currently established party.

Well our conversation eventually lead to me being a libertarian. This is the point of the conversation where things turned emotional for him. He got onto a long rant about how the Libertarian Party is corrupt and all real supporters of the Constitution must jump ship and go to the pure and perfect Tea Party. He couldn’t grasp the whole concept of me being a libertarian not a member of the Libertarian Party. It was inconceivable to him that somebody could identify themselves by a political belief instead of political party. And herein lies the problem in my opinion.

Our political system has become about party memberships instead of political beliefs. People will often join a political party because of one strong belief and ignore the fact that party doesn’t agree with any other belief they hold. For example many people join the Republican Party because they believe abortion should be illegal. On the other hand many people join the Democrat Party because they want gay marriage to be legal. In both of these cases the issue mentioned is the primary core belief and they are will to ignore all other party beliefs because, I believe, they are unable to wrap their head around the idea of not being a member of a party. For example using the cases I set forth the person who joined the Republican Party may be in support of gay marriage or against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The person who joined the Democrat Party may be against government controlled health care and labor unions. These individuals are fine with imperfect candidates (Perfect being those who completely agree with your beliefs). There are even people in these parties who are willing for force themselves into believing the rest of the party’s platform so they can be a “full member.”

Then you have the Tea Party members (Once again note the capital letters). Many of the people in these parties are unwilling to accept imperfect candidates. Often times members of the Tea Party were at one time members of the Republican Party, then left to join the Libertarian Party, and finally left for the Tea Party. When prodded why they left X Party they will usually say it’s because of one member who wasn’t perfect. What these people want is in fact impossible. They want to be a member of a party that consists only of people who completely agree with them. In other words they want to be involved in an organization that consists only of themselves. No two people have the exact same ideals hence you can’t have a party consisting only of people who agree with you.

So here comes to point I want to make here. Learn the difference between ideals and political organizations. Realize you don’t have to be a member of any single party. This is the only way you’ll be able to work exclusively with candidates you like. Don’t like the person the Republican Party fielded? That’s OK because you can go vote for the Libertarian Party candidate. Are you angry with who the Democrat Party picked? Then go vote for the Green Party person. Is there an individual running independently that you like? Go support that candidate. For those of you who joined a Tea Party because the other parties are all “evil and corrupted political groups run by special interests” come talk to me in ten years (If your specific Tea Party lasts that long). Chances are you’ll find that at some point during that decade span your Tea Party fielded an “unworthy” candidate and thus you’ll want to jump ship to a new “pure and perfect” political party. Or come join those of us who have no party affiliation and thus have flexibility.

In summary get people who get over the party mindset and start thinking for themselves again. Rant mode disengaged.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

This time its being used to collect more tax dollars. Via Dvorak Uncensored we have a touching story of the IRS doing what the IRS does:

Arriving at Harv’s Metro Car Wash in midtown Wednesday afternoon were two dark-suited IRS agents demanding payment of delinquent taxes. “They were deadly serious, very aggressive, very condescending,” says Harv’s owner, Aaron Zeff.

Oh crap I forgot to paste in the best part:

The really odd part of this: The letter that was hand-delivered to Zeff’s on-site manager showed the amount of money owed to the feds was … 4 cents.

And that’s not all:

Inexplicably, penalties and taxes accruing on the debt – stemming from the 2006 tax year – were listed as $202.31, leaving Harv’s with an obligation of $202.35.

So because of being short four cents on his taxes Mr. Zeff now owes the IRS $202.35. Yeah the American tax code is so just and fair.