Tag: Ranting

Good Problems to Have

This whole “constitutional carry” movement seems to be picking up speed. Wyoming has a bill moving through their legislature, a Tennessee representative just introduced such legislation in his state, and now New Hampshire has not just one but two competing constitutional carry bills:

Competing bills have been filed to eliminate New Hampshire’s license requirement for carrying concealed weapons, dividing the pro gun community. Some are lining up behind state Rep. J.R. Hoell, a Dunbarton Republican, and others behind state Rep. Jennifer Coffey, a Republican from Andover.

Man I would love to have that problem here in Minnesota.

As a side note let me just raise a big middle finger to Seacoast Online whom is the source in the NRA-ILA article I linked to. Usually I try to link to both the source I obtained my information from as well as the original source of the information. I didn’t do that here because Seacoast Online are asses. When the page was loading I saw the article for a split second (long enough to read the first sentence) before it disappeared. Why did it disappear? So the page could display a message telling me to enable JavaScript.

I use NoScript to only allow sites I trust to run JavaScript. This saves a ton of headaches online including those stupid advertisements that appears over articles in some web pages (not separate pop-up windows but inside the windows the page is displayed in) among other malicious activity. Some pages need JavaScript because they are poorly made, I get that. But when a page can display the article without JavaScript and chooses to hide it after the page completely loads that’s just inexcusable. Serious dick move there guys.

How Would You Feel if Somebody Tried to Take Your Stuff

Anti-gunners constantly talk about compromise. They want us in the pro-gun community to compromise with them on gun laws. When we refuse they get upset and make claims that we must hate children or some other such emotion stirring argument. It becomes impossible for them to wrap their heads around why we’re so steadfast against them. You know why we’re so steadfast against them? Because they’re trying to steal our shit, plain and simple.

It’s not just anit-gunners of course. Laws have been passed to take away our incandescent light bulbs, our salt, our gas guzzling trucks, basically people all around are trying to use the law to steal other peoples’ shit. I mentioned yesterday that this week was the World Week for the Abolition of Meat and I wanted to setup a lunch at Fogo de Chao. I wasn’t kidding, I setup the lunch with a couple of my friends. Why? It’s not because I hate vegans, what you chose to eat is your own business. I set it up because I’m sick of the militant animal rights groups such a PETA trying to take my meat away from me.

When you try to steal somebody’s shit they are going to push back, plain and simple. When you try to steal somebody’s shit for reasons that make no sense you’re going to get an argument. How would you feel if I decided that cell phones cause cancer and successfully lobbied for a law banning the transfer of cell phones to private citizens? You probably wouldn’t be very happy would you?

For you anti-gunners who can’t wrap your head around any reason why we’re fighting to hard against you it’s because you’re trying to take our shit. You’re not trying to take it to make society safer (we’ve demonstrated time and time against that removing firearms from society just disarms the lawful while making society no safer), you’re trying to take it to make yourselves feel safer. You’re trying to take out shit for no good reason, that’s why we’re pushing so hard against you.

You don’t have a right to feel safe but we do have a right to defend our lives. Likewise it’s not legal to steal another persons’ possessions but it’s legal to own possessions.

Burden of Proof

Tell me if this has ever happened to you. You get into an argument with somebody dealing with politics and the second they can no longer argue against your facts they claim the source of your facts is funded by some lobbyist group whom agrees with what you’re saying.

And example of this came to my eyes a couple days ago. Somebody brought up the fact that Hawaii has a low rate of firearm ownership (he claimed 1 in 10 but gave no real source) and a low rate of gun related deaths while Louisiana had a high rate of firearm ownership (he claimed 1 in 2) and a high rate of gun deaths. I think the guy felt himself pretty damned smug that he came up with this statistic all by himself. The problem, as I pointed out, was his correlation didn’t hold. I decided to bring up firearm ownership information and gun related death information. My sources were the Washington Post (specially chosen because they have an anti-gun slant and thus really couldn’t be claimed to be bias in my favor) and SiteMaster (a good source of raw statistics usually).

I pointed out North Dakota has a similar rate of firearm ownership to Louisiana but has far fewer gun related deaths (and almost no homicides at all I might add) while District of Columbia has a very low rate of firearm ownership yet has the highest rate of firearm related deaths in the nation. Most logical people would have shut up at this point or admitted their argument was in error. Not this guy who decided to claim my sources were funded by the NRA.

Once somebody starts attacking the source of your information it is up to them to prove the potential conflict of interest. Most anti-gunners will just say something about the burden of proof not being on them just because they made the argument. The problem is the burden of proof is the responsibility of the one making the claim. I make many claims on this site but always try to provide some source of evidence supporting those claims. That’s because I’m making the argument and thus realize the burden of proof lies with me.

Whenever you make an argument you must be able to provide supporting evidence. This is how arguments work. The reason anti-gunners can’t seem to get a leg up is because they have no evidence supporting their claims. Look at the citations used by the Violence Policy Center or the Brady Campaign sometime. They often just cross-reference each other and claim it to be proof. And therein lies another thing about providing proof, you should provide it through neutral sources. I purposely go out of my way to avoid using NRA funded sources of information when arguing guns because I realize there is a bias. Often I’ll cite information provide by anti-gun organizations because I’m an asshole and like to use their information against them. But I try not to point people to the NRA or other gun-rights organization unless they’ve released a study that clearly provides citations to neutral sources (and sometimes even then I don’t because people will claim bias immediately).

Just remember if you’re going to get into an argument with an anti-gunner have verifiable facts at hand and be ready for them to attack those facts by claiming you used a bias source. Also once they claim the burden of proof isn’t on their hands even though they’re making the claims call them out on it. Don’t let this lazy shit fly.

Audio Streaming Can’t be This Hard

A new update was released for the Evo 4G last week which seemed to consist entirely of new bloatware applications. I didn’t install it on my phone because the update didn’t have any mention of fixing the audio issues I’ve had since the Evo went from Android 2.1 to 2.2. Well it’s a good thing I waited because instead of fixing the audio player the update went and introduced new streaming audio problems.

Basically streaming MP3s over HTTP protocol doesn’t work… at all. In an ironic twist of fate AAC audio works great (AAC audio sound quality was destroyed in the initial 2.2 update due to problems in the StageFright media framework used in Android 2.2).

Rant time. How fucking hard is it to test your fucking patches? Streaming audio isn’t exactly rocket science. All you need to do to test audio streaming is run some streams using several popular services such as Pandora and Last.fm. If streaming fails fix the problem and don’t release the Odin damned patch.

I’ve never in my life seen a single platform with some many damned problem related to media playing. Playing media isn’t difficult anymore, we’ve been doing it for quite some time. I understand if something like the 4G radio has problems because that’s new technology which is in no way mature. Media streaming on the other hand is old technology that’s been around, we know how to do it.

Is it really that much to ask for to have a phone that can properly play audio files? My fucking iPod from the 2003 could play audio files without an issue. My damned Treo 755p from 2007 running an operating system who’s last major version came out in 2002 could stream MP3s properly. The Evo 4G is a flagship product and can’t do the same things my old Palm Treo 755p could do three years ago.

Seriously, what in the fuck is going on over at HTC?

Android Headaches Ended

A couple of weeks ago I made a post talking about a huge problem I have encountered with my Android device. Basically Google has lost all record of the applications I’ve purchased and if I want to continue using my paid applications I have to purchase them again.

The biggest headache here is the fact there is no phone or e-mail support for Google and thus if you have problems related to the Android Marketplace you have to post on the support forum. I did that on November 17th and have yet to receive any form of response. Worst of all I’m not alone. The more I dug into this problem to more obvious it became that there is no solution available and Google is worthless in providing any sort of help. The only solution so far is the following posted by user mjwhit3:

Update:
I had a conversation with a developer.
There is no way for them to change the account an app was purchased under (your apps account).

A workaround is (verify with the developer before doing anything):
1. Purchase the app again under your new primary (gmail) account
2. Provide proof of purchase for both transactions (apps and gmail)
3. The develop refunds your money for the first purchase.

This is a bit of work for them to do — especially to refund $1.50 or other small amount — so your mileage may vary.

Personally, I’m just going to safeguard my Titanium Backup files until Windows Phone comes out….

Yes the only solution so far is to repurchase your applications and ask the developers for a refund on the second copy. That’s bullshit through and through. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back after the previous series of failures I’ve encountered with the Android platform has lead me to this conclusion; Android isn’t a viable option as a phone platform. There I said it.

I’m willing to put up with a ton of shit but frankly losing all record of my app purchases without any method of getting technical support just crosses the line. I feel as though Google ripped me off and nothing pisses me off more than getting ripped off.

With all of that said I’m officially admitting to something now, I obtained an iPhone. Yes the platform I railed on more than anything else on the planet is currently what I’m carrying with me. As much as Apple pisses me off with their practices regarding the iOS platform I must admit the platform works. VPN works (which has never worked on Android as far as I can find), local backups of apps I’ve purchased are saved to my computer every sync (thus Apple losing all records of apps I’ve purchased it’s Armageddon), I receive no errors when syncing with my Exchange account calendar at work, and the media layer is rock solid. Between the options of an open and free platform that doesn’t work and a closed and restricted platform that does work I have to chose the latter because if my phone doesn’t work it’s worthless to me.

So what can I say about the iPhone at the moment? As I already stated all the features actually work which is a huge plus. The screen is gorgeous as Hell. Of course the phone does lose a lot of signal strength if you’re holding it in your left hand and having the front and back made out of glass if fucking stupid. The Last.fm app actually works and when I pause a podcast and come back to in five hours later it doesn’t restart from the beginning (huge plus). I also must admit that the built-in camera is the first phone camera that I can actually say does a half-way decent job (the Evo has an 8.0 megapixel camera but if the lighting isn’t absolutely perfect you get a ton of noise in the picture). Finally Apple’s practices with the App Store still piss me off to no end but at least if there is a catastrophic failure (like Apple losing all records of apps I’ve purchase) I can call somebody. Did I mention being able to use the phone function and my data plan at the same time seriously rocks?

I really tried to like Android but it fought me ever step of the way. Personally I’m not a fan of abusive relationships so I’m officially saying fuck that shit and moving elsewhere. I’ve eaten my words and realize I’m going to take endless shit for this but frankly I think the above makes a very valid case for my decision.

So why didn’t I jump to the Palm Pre instead? There are two reasons for that; I hold endless amounts of disdain for HP and the number of available applications for WebOS is sadly laughable. Considering the market share of WebOS has sunk to 1.3% I don’t know how relevant the platform will be in a couple of years. The last thing I want is to set myself up with a new platform only to have it die and thus have to perform yet another transition to a new platform.

At My Wit’s End with Android

It’s not secret to anybody reading this blog that I’ve developed quite the love/hate relationship with Android. On one hand I love many of the capabilities of Android but on the other hand it’s been plagued with bugs to the point of unusability in some cases. Well I just ran into another problem that’s really set me off, the Android Market appears to have lost all record of my purchased applications.

I went to apply a couple of updates a few days ago and noticed two applications wouldn’t update. I thought that was odd so went into the Market to do a manual update and noticed when I tapped the update button I was sent to the purchase page. The Market wanted me to purchase my application again. This seemed really odd so I logged into my Google checkout account and went through my purchased application history and found that everything was still in order that.

Obviously I needed to contact Google… which is impossible. Seriously, there is no technical support number for Google anywhere. Their support forums have left me with no answer but the knowledge other people have had variations of this problem without any reliable method of resolving it. Some people broke down and just repuchased the applications in essence paying for them twice. Nothing pisses me off more than getting ripped off and buying an application twice constitutes are rip off.

Basically I now have a portfolio of purchased applications that I can no longer use. Technical support is non-existent and frankly I’m pissed off. I wonder if Google actually has an competent people working on their Android platform or if they just toss shit at the wall and see what sticks.

Posers Gonna’ Pose

You know what’s almost adorable? Wanna be “l33t hax0rz.” These are the kids who have either just downloaded Cain and Able and think they’re hot shit or somebody who just found out what Wireshark is. Usually you can identify these punks by talking to them for five seconds… they’re the ones that will tell you how they can “hax0rz ur netwurkz.” Spotting them on IRC is made even easier because they’ll usually ask for your IP address so they can “hax ur azz.” Two things become apparent when talking to these people; they don’t know what the Hell they’re talking about and they can’t spell. I actually find the former more annoying than the latter to be honest.

Sometimes I find these people amusing enough to post about them. I’m sure you’ve deducted that this is one of those times. Via a good joke thread going around I found this little gem of an article about one of these “hax0rz.”. Although the information in this article is technically correct it’s shrouded in such a thick fog of bullshit I couldn’t help but laugh. The premise here is the author has decided to show how “l33t” he is by sneaking into an apartment building and listening to traffic on an open Wi-Fi network. I’m mostly going to be making fun of his delivery of information here. Shall we begin (yes I’ve been drinking beer and feel like being a total prick, why do you ask?):

Wearing pyjama pants and an ironic t-shirt, I headed towards a large apartment building near where I live. I choose it because a lot of students live there and I could easily blend in. That and I knew there would be lots of targets.

Yes camouflage is required to sneak into an apartment. When doing tactical entries into apartment complexes sometimes it’s just not convenient to wear your tactical entry vest. Usually when I’m on one of these black ops I disguise myself in a button-down shirt, pants, and a good pair of boots. You know what? I blend right the fuck in with everybody else who wears regular looking clothes. I’m such a bad ass.

I used to be a door to door salesman, so I know a few unique ways to get into a building, but I didn’t need them. As I walked up to the door, someone else was leaving. They held the door open for me and I was in. As soon as I entered, I noticed a video camera. What I planned to do would look weird on camera and I didn’t want security on my butt, so I was more careful from there onwards.

Wait… this guy used to be a door to door salesman and thus knows tricks to get into buildings? Personally I know a thing or two about getting into buildings as well. Of course I’m not a complete dumb ass and know the best way to gain entry into a building is to just wait for somebody to let you in. You’ll not Al Capone here used that “trick.” It’s pretty damned difficult to stand outside and act like you forgot your key.

How about that camera? I know being on a laptop sure looks suspicious this day and age. Every time I’m on my laptop in a public area I get hassled by all sorts of security personnel. Wait… scratch that, I never get hassled by security because nobody sees somebody on a laptop as weird this day an age. Well I take that back, they do if you act suspicious by trying to avoid cameras. That’s why the best trick when entering a building is to walk in like you own the place. Don’t give anybody watching any cameras a reason to be suspicious such as keeping your head low when you see a camera:

When I finally made it to my floor a camera greeted me. I ducked my head low and walked over to the staircase. If security was watching me, I didn’t want them knowing where I was.

Dumb ass.

After dropping down a few floors and switching to the other staircase I decided to do my dirty work on the 18th floor. The building was huge and it would take hours for them to search the entire thing. I opened up my laptop and lo and behold, there were eight insecure networks. I picked one at random and hit the mother-load.

Remember kids if you’re going to be an elite “hax0rz” you need to avoid cameras but then post exactly where you were in the building online. That way nobody can find out that the weird guy who entered or left floor 18 is the guy who wasn’t supposed to be there. Of course being an apartment I don’t think anybody gives two shits.

The program you see those IP’s in is called Ettercap. It’s no longer in development and I don’t want to go over everything it does, lets just say it makes it so I can steal usernames and passwords among other things. All I had to do was install the program and run it.

Ettercap is so elite and secret that “hax0rz” can’t talk about it.

I then opened a program called WireShark (you can see it in the second screenshot). Using this program I can easily see the websites these four people were browsing. As you can see this person is browsing IMDb. And in the next screenshot the person is… err…

OH MY GOD! WIRESHARK! IT’S SO FUCKING L33T! In fact it’s so fucking “l33t” that I use it almost every day at work. Wireshark is a packet analyzer. What the fuck is a packet analyzer you ask? Nothing fancy. It captures traffic going across a network and saves it for analysis. Wireshark has a million and one uses (for instance I use it to debug network applications I’m developing). Basically you can view all unencrypted data that goes across a network meaning if somebody on your network is using HTTPS you’re shit out of luck.

So I’m sure you’re asking why I wasted my time ridiculing this kid. The answer is simple… I’ve been drinking which means I’m a bigger asshole at the moment than usual (hard to believe isn’t it?). Additionally “hax0r” kiddies irritate me. They prey on peoples’ ignorance of computers to make themselves look more intelligent.

What the kid said in this article is technically correct. If can turn on my laptop, sniff an open wireless access point, and obtain any unencrypted traffic going across said network. I just don’t try to make myself look like a bad ass doing it. I also don’t do it on networks that I don’t own or have permission from the owner. The proper way to demonstrate this fact would have been to setup a private open network, generate traffic on it, and demonstrate the fact you can obtain the traffic from it via another computer by simply listening.

I always find it funny how the script kiddies (a person who doesn’t actually know about security flaws but instead utilizes automated tools and pretends they’re a bad ass) are the most boastful punks. Most people with actual knowledge of security issue will explain it to you in such a way that it doesn’t make it seem like they’re trying to be an elite bad ass operator. I’m sure this kid thought he was hot shit once he realized that you can actually see peoples’ network traffic via a packet analyzer.

Honestly I’d be embarrassed if I posted some drivel such as that article on my web site. Hell I’m almost embarrassed just linking to it. Let me redeem myself by recommending the awesome beer that inspired this post.

I guess that’s all I have to say about this “l33t hax0rz.” Just remember kids, always herp before you derp.

High Speed, Low Drag

You know what’s cute? Fanboys of expensive equipment. These are the people who will spend an exorbitant amount of money on something and explain to you what it’s so much better than the cheap version you purchased. I’m sure we’re all a little guilty of that. Myself for instance run Mac computers which are more expensive than standard PC rigs. Personally I like OS X and the fact that it runs out of the box without any hassle to me so it’s worth it. Of course I can explain why I prefer it and find the additional cost worth it to me.

Today I’m going to talk to you about the other group of people who spend lots of money, the ones who buy marketing terms without knowing what they are. There have been a couple of threads over a MNGunTalk recently dealing with the AR-15. As with any thread dealing with AR-15 rifles you will have one or two fanboys/trolls pop in and explain how the only real AR-15 fit for battler is a Noveske, Spike Tactical, etc.

What I find hilarious is the reasons spouted by these super operators. This is where we get into marketing terms. Every company will give you a list of terms and exclaim them to be reasons why their product is superior to their competitor’s. Here is where the problem comes in, what the fuck do those terms mean? My favorite example is the debate between the Melonite finish on Springfield XDs and the Tenifer treating on Glocks.

A Glock fanboy will exclaim to you that the Tenifer treating is far superior to “cheap Czech rip off.” Of course anybody who’s researched to subject knows that Melonite is just another marketing name for Tenifer. They’re the same process by the same company.

AR-15 fanboys like to bring up all sorts of high-speed and low-drag terms. For instance they’ll talk about the tests that are done by the high end AR-15 manufacturers. Tests are great… so long as you know the tolerance for error. Making a perfect and flawless product is practically impossible, you will always have some form of defect. Due to this fact you must know the tolerance for error before you can consider any test legitimate. You also need to know the exact test performed and how it was performed. An example of this is manufacturers who do high pressure testing on their barrels. What exactly does this test entail? How high is the pressure? What does this test prove? All these must be answered before you can proclaim it as a reason to purchase one product over another.

Another classic example in the gun community are metal injection molded (MIM) parts in 1911s. Many operators will proclaim any gun containing MIM parts is automatically junk. Of course MIM parts are used in a great number of 1911s (almost any 1911 under $1,000) without issue. If you’re going to proclaim MIM parts junk you must know the rate of failure for MIM parts versus, say, forged parts. Most operators know that MIM parts are cheaper and therefore believe they are inferior without any other reasoning.

In the computer development field we have a game called buzzword bingo. Buzzwords are the marketing term for software. Companies will boast about how their software package uses an “open XML format for data storage in the cloud.” What this generally means is your data is stuck on one of their servers (“the cloud”) and what format it’s in is irrelevant. If you don’t continue to pay your monthly subscription fee you can’t get at your data and thus you’re locked into that vendor. The other thing is XML can be human readable… once in a great while. Open up a Microsoft Word XML file in a standard XML editor sometime and tell me if you can read anything contained within. You won’t. There will be an excessive number of tags and references to external document type definition (DTD) files (among external XML files, style sheets, etc.). It’s all a buzzword that ultimately means absolutely nothing for you, the customer.

Basically what I’m saying is don’t buy into marketing terms. If a company is trying to sell you a product and have a bunch of marketing speak thrown in as reasoning find out what that marketing speak means. Sure the bolt on that rifle may be made out of totallyawesomanium but if you don’t know what that alloy actually is you may be paying extra for the marketing term used by that company to describe 4150 steel.

Well That’s Retarded

With ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, our economy in the toilet, our money losing value faster than Obama is losing voter approval, and hundreds of out major issues our representatives are wasting their time on political correctness:

The measure, passed by the House by voice vote Wednesday night, changes the phrase “mentally retarded” to “an individual with an intellectual disability” in existing health, education and labor law.

I think I finally understand something. Political correctness is directly proportional to the number of words used to describe something. Being “retarded” is one word it’s very politically incorrect but “an individuals with an intellectual disability” is six words so it’s six times more politically correct.

The only thing the politically correct crowd has accomplished here is turning the word disabled into a future insult. Insults such as idiot, moron, retard, etc. all derived from their legitimate medical usage:

At the May 18, 1910 annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of the Feeble-Minded, Goddard proposed definitions for a system for classifying individuals with mental retardation based on intelligence quotient (IQ). Goddard used the terms moron for those with an IQ of 51-70, imbecile for those with an IQ of 26-50, and idiot for those with an IQ of 0-25 for categories of increasing impairment. This nomenclature was the standard of the field for decades. A moron, by his definition, was any person with mental age between eight and twelve. Morons, according to Goddard, were unfit for society and should be removed from society either through institutionalization, sterilization, or both. What Goddard failed to see was that his bias against morons would greatly influence his data later.

So what is my point here? Simple people used the words moron, imbecile, and idiot as insults due to their medical meaning. A person who is being a dumb ass is often called an idiot because they’re acting with the mental age of an infant. Retard is used as an insult because it means somebody who is mentally slow. Changing the term from retard to individual with a disability is just going to make people start using the term mentally disabled as an insult in 10 years. At that point it will be politically incorrect to use the term mentally disabled and we’ll have to come up with a more flowery and politically correct term which will probably end up being at least 10 words in length.

Why the Hell am I paying my taxes for our representatives’ payroll? Oh that’s right because the government has a gun to my head.