Dating Service for Zealots

This is one of those things that I laughed at, then rolled my eyes, and then realized it may be a good idea. Most Apple users are finicky people who have an almost religious love for Apple devices. Everything Apple makes it supposed to be great while everything else is complete and utter shit. One problem for these people is finding a mate in a world rules most by Windows is very difficult. Sure the first date goes well but then the Apple fan finds out the prospective mate uses Windows. Shortly after the Apple fan finds him or herself single again. Well good news there’s now a dating site for Apple users.

Maybe this will keep the Apple zealots rounded up in one place.

This is Why I Have a No Shortened URL Rule

One rule I have here is any comments containing a link that uses a URL shortening service gets removed, no questions asked. I do this because as Bruce Shcneier shows us those shortened URLs are a huge security risk. Cory Doctorow recently got screwed by a phishing attack via a good old URL shortened link:

I opened up my phone fired up my freshly reinstalled Twitter client and saw that I had a direct message from an old friend in Seattle, someone I know through fandom. The message read “Is this you????” and was followed by one of those ubiquitous shortened URLs that consist of a domain and a short code, like this: http://owl.ly/iuefuew.

Never click on a URL from a URL shortening service. You have no idea where they will lead you or what the page they link to will contain.

Not This Crap Again

Jay over at MArooned stumbled upon some major stupidity. Somebody is suing Starbucks because they dared to serve him hot tea:

According to the complaint, the plaintiff Zeynep Inanli was served tea that was “unreasonably hot, in containers which were not safe,” at a Starbucks store at 685 Third Avenue in Manhattan.

As a result of Starbucks’ negligence, the plaintiff suffered “great physical pain and mental anguish,” including the burns, the complaint said.

Of course they threw in the mental anguish. It’s easy to make millions when unspecified damages are thrown in. This would be a fine country if it wasn’t for all the fucking frivolous lawsuits.

Real Terrorist Prevention

Bruce Schneier once again points out how our government’s policies and methods for preventing terrorism are wrong. He wrote a recent article for the New York Times that describes what is being down incorrectly:

Think about the security measures commonly proposed. Cameras won’t help. They don’t prevent terrorist attacks, and their forensic value after the fact is minimal. In the Times Square case, surely there’s enough other evidence — the car’s identification number, the auto body shop the stolen license plates came from, the name of the fertilizer store — to identify the guy. We will almost certainly not need the camera footage. The images released so far, like the images in so many other terrorist attacks, may make for exciting television, but their value to law enforcement officers is limited.

Check points won’t help, either. You can’t check everybody and everything. There are too many people to check, and too many train stations, buses, theaters, department stores and other places where people congregate. Patrolling guards, bomb-sniffing dogs, chemical and biological weapons detectors: they all suffer from similar problems. In general, focusing on specific tactics or defending specific targets doesn’t make sense. They’re inflexible; possibly effective if you guess the plot correctly, but completely ineffective if you don’t. At best, the countermeasures just force the terrorists to make minor changes in their tactic and target.

Exactly. Our government agencies focus on specific threats and put in countermeasures for threats that have already been used. When somebody put explosives in their shoes TSA made you remove your shoes at their “security” checkpoints. When somebody tried using a liquid bomb on a plane TSA barred you from carrying bottled water on board (unless you purchased it at an exorbitant rate behind the “security” checkpoint). But bad guys are creative and think up new methods that avoid the implemented specific threat countermeasures.

So Much for Peer Review

The climatgate won’t close. The IPCC has claimed that their 2007 study, which is under severe scrutiny, was peer-reviewed. Peer-reviewed, I don’t think that word means what you think it means:

The first report centred directly on the IPCC itself. When several of the more alarmist claims in its most recent 2007 report were revealed to be wrong and without any scientific foundation, the official response, not least from the IPCC’s chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, was to claim that everything in its report was “peer-reviewed”, having been confirmed by independent experts.

But a new study put this claim to the test. A team of 40 researchers from 12 countries, led by a Canadian analyst Donna Laframboise, checked out every one of the 18,531 scientific sources cited in the mammoth 2007 report. Astonishingly, they found that nearly a third of them – 5,587 – were not peer-reviewed at all, but came from newspaper articles, student theses, even propaganda leaflets and press releases put out by green activists and lobby groups.

So much for the scientific process.

Hello Kettle, This is The Pot Calling

If you’ve been paying any attention to the iPhone/iPad Flash pissing match you know it’s rather stupid. On one hand Apple is refusing to allow Flash on to their device because it could create competition to their app store ruin the battery life of their device. Adobe feels they have some kind of right to have their software placed on Apple’s platform. Well Adobe has claimed to quit attempted Flash development for the iPhone/iPad (I can’t say I blame them considering Apple went so far as to say you can only use Apple approved tools to develop for the iPhone/iPad now):

“As developers for the iPhone have learned, if you want to develop for the iPhone you have to be prepared for Apple to reject or restrict your development at any time, and for seemingly any reason,” Chambers said. “The primary goal of Flash has always been to enable cross browser, platform and device development. The cool Web game that you build can easily be targeted and deployed to multiple platforms and devices. However, this is the exact opposite of what Apple wants. They want to tie developers down to their platform, and restrict their options to make it difficult for developers to target other platforms.”

I honestly thought the point behind Flash was to waste my laptop’s battery through absurd CPU usage. But Mr. Chambers is correct in that Apple’s goal is to lock you into their platform while preventing easy cross-platform development that would make it easier for their customers to jump ship. It’s the same thing most software companies have been doing since the dawn of pay-for software. Of course the pot decided to call the kettle black:

In a response, Apple indicated its preference for a variety of up-and-coming standards that collectively compete with what Flash can do.

“Someone has it backwards–it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and H.264 (all supported by the iPhone and iPad) that are open and standard, while Adobe’s Flash is closed and proprietary,” said spokeswoman Trudy Muller in a statement.

H.264 is not an open standard. People who wish to use H.264 are required to license the technology. Furthermore although the web browser on the iPhone/iPad uses HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript the applications themselves are not written using those technologies. Adobe was not only trying to get web based Flash onto the iPhone/iPad but also trying to make technology that ported Flash applications to a format that could be utilized on the iPhone/iPad which is a close platform.

Either way this debate really is stupid. Apple has no obligation to allow anything on their device they don’t want to allow. Likewise you are not obligated to purchase and use Apple’s phone/tablet if you don’t like their rules (which is why I don’t have an iPhone or iPad).

Somebody’s Clever Plan Wasn’t Thought Through Very Well

Every Day, No Days Off informs us that some marketing people don’t think their clever ideas through all the way:

A marketing stunt to promote a video game sparked an armed police callout after an actor pointed a fake gun at terrified pubgoers in Auckland’s Viaduct Basin.

About 20 revellers drinking outside Degree bar dived for cover after the promotions worker threatened them with a black imitation pistol about 8pm on Friday.

I can’t quite put my finger on it but something seems wrong with that promotional idea.

Hey Women These Earthquakes are Your Fault

No seriously they are. Undeniable proof has been brought forth on Dvorak Uncensored tying women to the recent rash of earthquakes:

Women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes, a senior Iranian cleric has said.

Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi’s comments follow a warning by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that a quake is certain to hit the capital Tehran and that many residents should relocate.

In a prayer sermon, the cleric said: ‘Many women who do not dress modestly… lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes.’

How can that string of cause and effect be denied? I dare you to find a scientist who can prove that wrong!

What’s Their Purpose

Bitter over at Snowflakes in Hell pointed out another idiotic assortment of dribble that is trying to be passed off as a study. The adamantly anti-gun organization Violence Policy Center has released another one of their Google searches studies. This time they are “proving” that the NRA and its members are dangerous anti-government terrorists. The article advertising this study leads me to ask the question, what exactly is the Violence Policy Center’s purpose?

From what I gather through this article its not so much an anti-gun organization but a pro-government organization. Let’s look at some choice quotes:

The study offers examples of the NRA’s anti-government language, details NRA marketing to Tea Party supporters, and reveals links in nine states between NRA State Election Volunteer Coordinators, the Tea Party movement, and other factions of the “Patriot movement.”

Let me get this straight. You’re supposed to be afraid of the NRA and its supporters because some of those members are part of the tea party movement? Let’s jump into the way back machine here and remember what the original tea parties were about. They were about taxes. People attending these tea party events felt the government was stealing too much of their money in the form of taxes. They were (still are) paying more and want to pay less. Eventually the mass media tried spinning these events as anti-government movements and organized political parties (they were merely events at first). And now the tea party “movement” isn’t just about taxes but wanting small government in general. What’s wrong with that? A desire for small government was the basis on which this country was founded. Let’s rip into some more quotes:

The study finds that, echoing the language of the resurgent Patriot movement, the NRA routinely presents the election of Barack Obama as a virtually apocalyptic threat not only to gun ownership, but to the future of the United States itself.

Most people who vie for small government present the election of Barack Obama as a threat to the future of the United States. He’s the classic “progressive” big government guy which was made very apparent by the fact he did everything he could to ensure the mandatory health insurance bill was passed. Once again it seems that the Violence Policy Center is jockeying itself to be a pro-government organization instead of an anti-gun organization. But there’s more:

In a December 2009 direct-mail letter echoing the language of both the Tea Party movement and the Oath Keepers, the NRA urges the reader to join an “army whose highest allegiance is not to any individual or any political party but only to the cause of freedom.”

Are they seriously trying to spin this as a bad thing? So according to the Violence Policy Center the idea of our military having their allegiance to the concept of freedom is a bad thing? In my book that’s a great thing. I love the idea that of the army ignoring illegal orders such as confiscating guns from the sovereign individuals of the United States. I love the idea of our military refusing to enact marshal law. If that’s what our army is about I’m all for it. I guess the Violence Policy Center doesn’t feel the same way and believe our military should blindly obey the commands of our governing officials even if those orders violence the very Constitution this country was created on. But hey they’re not done yet:

The organization now also markets NRA clothing products emblazoned with the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, which has become the symbol of the Tea Party movement. The description for the NRA Gadsden tee shirt reads: “What goes around comes around. In the late 18th century, oppressed American patriots voiced their defiance of tyranny by exclaiming, ‘Don’t Tread on Me!’ Perhaps it’s time once again for Freedom-loving citizens to rally ’round the legendary slogan of the famous Gadsden flag.”

The Gadsden flag isn’t the “symbol of the Tea Party movement” but the symbol of those wanting smaller government. In fact according to this implication the Navy should be considered terrorists as they fly the Gadsden flag to this day.

I think the Violence Policy Center needs to take a look at what their real purpose is. It is becoming more and more obvious their position is the ensure government can do as it pleases without any restriction. After all we need to ban guns because members of the NRA hold libertarian ideals! Oh the humanity! There are people who believe that government shouldn’t be interfering with their everyday lives! What will they think of next?