SoandSuch

All The Men Are Stupid

2011-11-29T06:31:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I finally got to watch Crazy Stupid Love. No, there were no ladies in attendance. I actually wanted to watch the movie.

Shut up.

I generally stay away from "romantic comedies" because, well they are exercises in extreme fantasy that are faker than the flying kicks in your average kung-fu flicks. But somehow I still manage to watch those....but I digress. I simply don't identify at all with most of them hence their non-appeal.

My exceptions to date have been The Ugly Truth..which did in fact have a lot of ugly truths; and Hitch, one of my all time favorites.

Bite me.

No really, Hitch is like Cinderella for men. The fat nerd gets the princess. I mean what average shmuck would not root for this dude? And if you can't identify with the fat nerd, you can identify with the cool black guy lady killer. I'm not telling who I identified with, but I will say that I'm not teaching ANY guy how to "come in" 9/10ths of the way with MY mouth. OK?

Right then.

So this brings us to the topic du jour. I understand that Crazy Stupid Love is a comedy but the overtones of "the men are stupid" theme was just too much for me to bear. If feminists can bitch and complain about the portrayal of women in movies, then dammit I gotta stick up for the men.

Dammit.

So in the very beginning the tone is set when Steve Carell's wife decides to tell him that she slept with a co-worker and wants a divorce. All in one sitting. Steve being the "I have no balls" man as his character is, doesn't shout, scream or you know, leave her ass in the restaurant. No, he gets driven home by The Hussy...I mean, wife...who insists on continuing the conversation over Steve's objections. Does he tell her to "shut the fuck up?"like you know...any self respecting man who's been faithful would do? Noooooo...he calmly says "I really don't want to hear this" and then bails out of the moving car. Yes, the moving car.

Yes, I did laugh.

But seriously Steve? Your wife announces, in public, that she's fucking her coworker AND wants a divorce and YOU bail out the car?

From that point on I knew this was going to be a "the men are all stupid" kind of movie.

To add insult to injury, who gets thrown out the house? The cheating hussy? No, Steve the honest cubicle office man who's been crying in the bathroom where everybody can hear and who's been faithfully providing for his family.

What. The. Fuck?

I thought for SURE that there was some baby involved here. Some kind of rational explanation as to why The Hussy ought to have remained in the marriage home. Nope, the kids are way old enough to know mom is a ho and had to go. But I suppose the target market, clearly not me, would not have enjoyed watching the rest of the movie if The Hussy had to spend the rest of the movie trying to get back with Steve.

Anyway.

So Steve, now paying mortgage and rent I suppose, does the "loser in the bar" bit. I admit, I did the "loser in the bar bit" thing once. It's kind of hard to pull off when you don't actually drink alcohol, but....anyway, where was I? right..So he's at the bar where "The playboy" resides.

Of course The Playboy (tm) is the superficial "misogynist" who's entire life's goal is to bed as many women as possible, seeing how he's "won" the gender war. And of course he needs to meet the "right" woman who will make him see the errors of his ways and become more like Steve "I have no balls" Carell's character.

This guy informs Steve that his wife is fucking the co-worker because Steve has lost "it". Yes folks it is Steve's fault why his wife was fucking around. He was too boring. Remember that fellas. If you get boring you deserve what's coming to you.

*eye roll*

Then there is the neighbor. The father of the girl who babysits for Steve. He finds Steve at the bar where he whispers, WHISPERS that his wife has told him he can't socialize with Steve anymore.

What?

So to recap.. Steve's wife fucked the co-worker and announced it in a public place and asked for a divorce and Steve is the one to be shunned?

The fuck out of here.

So Steve's character, after a wardrobe change and a hefty bar bill (Side note: you folks actually spend THAT much on alcohol?), finally gets laid and proceeds to bed about 9 women. Remember this is a man...and I use the term lightly, who was just informed that his wife has been boinking the co-worker and wants a divorce. At a PTA meeting it comes out that he's had a few women and what does The Hussy do? She gets mad.

Excuse me?

How does the "I fucked the co-worker and now I want a divorce" wife have ANY say on who Steve fucked after getting that kind of news? How does she even have the RIGHT to be mad? Exactly HOW does that work?

Does Steve say "fuck you Mrs 'I fucked my co-worker'? Noooooooo...He's trying to apologize and shit.

What is this? Is this what women are watching on Lifetime TV? Are they actually thinking that this type of shit is acceptable? Is this the "new man" shit that's being promoted?

Fuck all that in it's entirety.

Do I need to even discuss the boy with the unhealthy fixation on the flat ass, flat chested babysitter? Do I? For the entire movie I was saying to myself...but she's not even THAT cute kid.

Back to The Hussy. After Steve has got his testicles off, the Hussy starts to "date" the co-worker she was fucking? Really? And invites him over? Really? Really? And during this "get together" the father of the "crush object" runs in on the assumption that Steve has been molesting his daughter. This because his wife, the one who apparently runs things in that house, presented him with a card with a "compromising" photo of the daughter and addressed to Steve.

Now you'd think that he'd first and foremost ask his daughter what the hell this is. Nope. Steve must be a molester.

*all kinds of sigh*

So the men don't think. They are two faced ('cause playboy is good for everything but your daughter), prone to violence and don't stand up for themselves. I guess this is what passes for good romantic comedies these days.

So there we have it. All the men are stupid.

Dear Babyface

2011-11-28T05:37:00.001-08:00

Dear Babyface

a long time ago you released an album called "Tender Lover". It was 1989, I was either in high school or college. Didn't matter. I wasn't a lover, yet, so all those songs were fantasy to me. Anyway back then I thought "Soon As I get Home" was The Shit (tm). I don't know why. Well the music was the bomb. Still is. Those lyrics? That's a whole other story.

Back when I was 17 and stupid I thought that whole "Soon as I get home from work" was like an instruction manual. No lie. Not having a father around to set you straight on these things can do that to a youngster. That whole provide for your woman thing was something I vaguely identified with so that concept made sense. Besides, the last song I recall talking about the rent, went something like "nothing goin' on but..". However; since my only concern at the time was room, board, classes and why my then very long distance girlfriend was never home when I called. I didn't quite understand the gravity of the lyrics in your song. I'm older now and listening to this track causes me all kinds of head shaking. Let me explain.

Let's go over these lyrics.

Hey, come here for a second
I don't like the way he treats you
He doesn't deserve you
He really don't

I suppose this line works for you. I think LL did that in his "Loungin'" track

Anyway it's not that it's bad, but cliche. Really.

What kind of man
Would leave you standing in the cold
Must've been a silly one
To sacrifice a pot of gold
You're the kind of woman
That needs a man that's always there
It's not that you require a lot
Just need some tender love and care

Hmmm...Perhaps they had an argument. I dunno. Didn't I hear LL do this one too? Anyway I want to focus on this "Pot of gold" thing because sir, we will need to revisit this line.

I give good love
I'll buy your clothes
I'll cook your dinner too
Soon as I get home from work

You swing good dick. Ok. I think every brother has used this line. But that's not the really offending line.

"I'll buy your clothes?"

What?

What?

Not that you'll buy her *some* clothes. You just said you'll buy her clothes period. Negro please. Don't you know that folk don't value what they don't earn?

"I'll cook your dinner too
Soon as I get home from work?

What kind of role reversal nonsense is this? Since apparently YOU are the one going to work; 'cause I didn't see anything about what employment she came from, YOU are going to come home after working all day and cook her food? Excuse me sir, exactly WHAT was this lazy heffa doing all day while you were out buying her clothes and working?

I'll pay your rent
Your faithful lover
Soon as I get home, soon as I get home from work

You'll do what?

Please explain to me how you're coming home from work, with clothes you just bought, all ready to cook dinner and it's not your place.

Explain that one to me?

Why the fuck are you doing all that shit AND paying the rent on a place you don't live in? So after all that shopping, cooking and rent paying you're supposed to go home to somewhere else? Explain this to me.

For all that it's worth
I give good love (good love, good love, good love, good love)

And after ALL that you still have to claim to throw a good dick? I do not understand. Really.

You're the kind of woman
That needs a man with lots of cash
With a stack of major credit cards
And with me you don't have to ask

Do this "pot of gold" apparently needs a man with a lot of gold. I'm dying with laughter here.

Babyface. Look. With all that you wrote here it should be clear why some man left her "out in the cold." Clearly it was a trap for a sucker like you to up and find so you could do everything for this "pot of gold". See, you asked in the opener "What kind of man..." and stated that "he must have been a silly one." Let me suggest that If you don't see that your working all day, come home and cook, buy her clothes, pay her rent and throw the dick, to some lazy heffa who's entire day consists of taking the credit card stack at will for God only knows what. Then you sir are the silly one, not the supposedly now broke and bad credit having fool that left her out at the bus stop (or wherever you saw her).

Anyway. Now that I have revisited this song I just want you to know that it's been removed from my favorite slow jams playlist. I see why it was so popular back then. Pandering is always a good way to move units but damn...this is some low shit. Even for 1989.

The Sanduski Sam I Am Defense

2011-11-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

I am not a pedophile
Sam I am
I do not like boys
in that way Sam I am.

I did not touch them in my car
Sam I am
you take this too far

I did not touch them here or there
I did not touch them
not even their hair

I did not touch them in my home
everybody knows
in order to touch them
you must be alone

I did not wrestle them on the ground
I tell you again
we were horsing around

I did not put his penis in my mouth
I did not touch him on the couch
I did not touch him in the locker
I did not touch him in the shower

They are lying
Sam I am
I said it on the radio
I'm not that kind of man
now leave me be
Sam I am
I must go eat
my green eggs and ham.

The Boolshit

2011-11-11T08:22:00.000-08:00

So we find Herman Cain being officially accused of sexual harassment. Some are taking Bialek's account to be that of a case of sexual assault. However; her story doesn't pass the sniff test, the hear test or most tests that you throw at it. Mind you it's not that I get any pleasure from defending Herman "Let me Upgrade ya" Cain but the "assault" angle has me disturbed and perturbed and needs to be dealt with.

Let us understand that legally assault is any physical contact that does not have consent of the touched. The key point being consent. Sexual assault is clearly assault of a sexual nature. In each case establishing consent is key to whether there is an assault or not. When we look at the events as relayed by Bialek we find that using the term assault is unfounded. Let me explain.

There is this Simpsons episode where college Marge was infatuated with a college professor who was trying to score co-ed booty. They were in his office where he declares that he would like to hug Marge and if she was OK with that. Then he went on to verbally ask permission to kiss her. The entire scene is an example of the ridiculous lengths the "consent" argument can go. In real life consent is not always explicitly verbal but is situational and implied through actions and counter actions. For example in the movie Hitch, Hitch advises his client about the 'jingly keys" phenomenon. In effect Hitch tells his client that if a woman is standing at her door and jingling her keys then it is a delay tactic meant to signal that she wants a kiss. Never mind that she hasn't said so, Hitch's client needs to "be a man" and pucker up and move "9-10ths" of the way in.

Really.

Now think about that for a minute. Imagine that upon following this advice (or seeing this film) a man gets a woman to her door and she's jingling the keys because she has a lot of them and perhaps can't make out the right one but because he's been told that such jingling is a "universal unspoken invite" to a kiss, he leans in and goes for it. Now imagine said woman being of the mind that she doesn't want a kiss and says "whoah buster...not!" Has he assaulted her? He *thought* he had consent because he was going by what he perceived were consenting cues that it was OK. The fact is that people in the course of normal human interaction read and misread cues all the time.

So let's take this to Cain. According to Bialek, she met Cain at some company event while she was an employee of the company. If I recall correctly she said that they talked regularly for the 2 day event. She made no mention of Cain making any inappropriate remarks or doing anything 'inappropriate" at that time. Later she is fired from the company. Later while seeking employment she cold calls Cain. Herman Cain who apparently had a sexual interest in this woman seizes the moment. This is not unusual in the least bit. a former employee is fair sexual game. We're going to ignore the fact that he is married for the duration of this piece.

Let's make it clear. If a person is going to refer one for a job the only thing he or she is going to need to see is your resume. Then perhaps have a formal interview, likely at the place of future employment, perhaps a business lunch followed by a yea or nay. Keep that in mind.

Herman Cain, as far as Bialek's account goes, does not ask for a resume or anything of the like that would be required by a human resources department. He immediately invites her to DC. When she arrives in DC she finds that her hotel suite has been upgraded. This is what we call a "red flag". Once Bialek determined that it was Cain and not her "boyfriend" who had upgraded her room she should have known that Cain's interest was not professional. The upgrade was "an offer", a sexual advance. Grown women should know this and know how to act accordingly.

Next Herman Cain takes Bialek to dinner. Really? This is red flag number two in my book. Again I don't see the professional reason to have dinner with Mr. Cain. I see having a business lunch but not a dinner. This was another "sexual advance". Mr. Cain is laying out the "typical" "wine and dine..then fuck" scenario. A scenario I'm sure he's done or has seen done many many times.

At this point Ms. Bialek knowing what time it was should have done the "Oh it's getting late and I need to go." Or maybe the "Oh wow...I'm not feeling so well." Or any of the other myriad excuses that women have used for years to brush off a man who is clearly in want of "dessert".

What does Bialek do? After dinner she accepts an offer by Cain to go see the location.

Really?

Why not go there the next morning?

Right.

So Bialek says that Herman Cain, after parking some distance from said building reaches over to put his hand up her skirt while pulling her head to his crotch.

BOOOOOOLSHIT.

As a commenter on Facebook pointed out, how exactly does that work?
Now we don't know what kind of car Herman Cain was driving. Did it have bucket seats or a bench seat? Do yourself a favor and attempt to reach up a leg that is next to you with your LEFT hand while taking your RIGHT hand to push a head towards your crotch.

Not easy right?

Now try that with a center console, found in many upscale cars, between the seats.

I'll wait.

Right.

So clearly Cain could not have physically done what was described *as* described. Now he could have done a double move. That is he could have first put his hands on Bialek's leg and motioned up towards her genitals. But here's the problem: Bialek said that she said "Oh I have a boyfriend."

Really?

A man has just put his hands up your skirt and your FIRST response is "I have a boyfriend"? You had a boyfriend when your room got upgraded. You had a boyfriend when you got taken out to dinner rather than a professional lunch. Didn't seem to be a problem then.

Now that sounds foul but it is what it is, when you start taking gifts that are clearly predicated on future sexual behavior that man is going to follow through because he takes the acceptance of these things as implied consent. And yes, implied consent is a legally recognized concept. For example, when you sign on the dotted line for one of those smart electric meters you have given implied consent to have your electricity use monitored and reported to law enforcement. Driving down a public street gives the police implied consent to observe anything you do in your vehicle that is in clear view. We give implied consent all the time. THIS is why describing the events as related by Bialek as assault is incorrect.

But back to the car. Anyone who has had an affair or knows of persons who have had affairs knows the "I have a wife" and "I have a husband" comment. It is generally speaking not a "no." but a "I'm kinda conflicted but I'd like to fuck" comment. Generally speaking that kind of comment becomes "oh fuck it...". Sometimes it doesn't. In Bialek's case, it became a "no".

What did Herman Cain do when he was told no? After giving his dickhead response of "you want a job right?" he stopped. Exactly what he was supposed to do when told "no". This is a clear cut case of a man who thought he had "consent" finding out that he did not and immediately reversing course. Had Cain not been a dick by trying to get sex for a job offer, he would be THE poster child of how a man is supposed to act when he is told "no".

This is an example of honoring the "no means no" regardless of how much you spent or where you took her to eat.

But was it harassment?

From what I read, Bialek was not an employee of Mr. Cain or the company he worked for. Nor was she in the process of a formal job interview. Bialek was someone who "lucked up" on a douche of a man while seeking employment who ignored all the red flags indicating that there was only one kind of "job" being offered. Cain was not some random guy on the street who made a sly brush of her buttocks. He wasn't a random guy on the street who yelled out sexual commentary to a woman he does not know and therefore has no reason to think he has consent.

Was Cain aggressive? Certainly. Personally I operate on the hands off rule. I don't touch, hug or otherwise make contact with women who have not either first done so with me or have given me explicit invite or I have a previous understanding with. But I am very much aware that this rule does not apply to everyone. I am very aware that there are some women who like and "appreciate" an aggressive man. There are even those who deem that unless a man is aggressive he is not in fact being a man. I'm not going to judge these people. What I will say is that given these varied attitudes towards sexual aggression it is unfair to project those onto other people and then judge them by our own personal value system.

Does this mean that Cain did not assault or otherwise harass women that he worked with? Of course not. When those stories come out they should be evaluated on their own merits, but this one? Booooolshit.

Feminism At Its Most Thoughtless

2011-10-31T17:30:00.000-07:00

Saw this article in The Atlantic regarding recent allegations of sexual harassment by Herman Cain. It contained this gem:

Feminism, at its most thoughtless, engendered an overbroad and unduly subjective definition of sexual harassment that includes speech and behaviors ranging from offensive remarks to actual assaults. Feminism, at its most thoughtless, equated every trivial discussion of sexual relations with political discourse and framed every allegation of sexual misconduct as presumptively true.

I'm glad that was written because I've been making this argument for years. Every time I try to have a specific, fact based discussion on the topic all kinds of "automated responses" are given by the so-called feminist whom apparently are convinced of their own infalibility on the subject. They should take the comment by this individual to shape up their game.

The Future Apple

2011-10-06T05:54:00.001-07:00

With the passing of Steve Jobs many are going to have their concerns regarding Apple's future move to the forefront of their minds. Anyone who was paying attention knew this was coming once the first treatment for pancreatic cancer, which has a high mortality rate, did not leave us with a Jobs that was "fuller". But this isn't about that, this is about Apple.

I saw a headline for David Pogue's NY Times piece entitled "Often Imitated Never Duplicated". I haven't read the piece but anyone with Apple Inc. on the brain has to think that this means as much within Apple as it does without. I'm not one of those people who proclaim stuff like "We would still be using DOS" or "we wouldn't have chat" or other such nonsense. I've been around long enough to see ideas I came up with as a child (and older) be implemented by someone else. No, the ideas will still flow but what is unique with Jobs and other visionary men and women is the ability and willingness to execute. Apple Inc. has been able to execute and lead but those of us who were around during the "dark days" knows that Apple Inc. has been very much an extension of Jobs. We saw what happened when other people took over the company.

I'm not saying that Apple has to go in that direction. I understand that Jobs and co has done a great deal of work of educating it's leadership and other employees on the Apple Way (tm). I'm also sure that the reason for Apple U, as I hear it's called, was created with the "dark days" foremost in the mind.

I watched the iPhone 4s video yesterday and I was saying to myself that Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs. Not that his presentation was bad. It simply wasn't "Jobsian". I've gotten used to seeing Phil Schiller et-al go and make announcements about products and personally I think Phil is more the stage manager than Cook. This underscores my concern. Whereas Jobs could command an Apple show by himself if he liked, there is already a split in the leadership. Again, I'm not saying that this is necessarily bad but it does reflect a fundamental shift at Apple. Jobs, while still in the flesh should be assumed to be the glue that held the top talent together with him gone, that mediating presence is gone and as with any organization that loses it's founding head those left often have a fraction (how ever large) of the...What shall I call it? Talent.

Some may say that I'm putting too much emphasis on Jobs. They will point out that Cook and others have been running the show for quite some time now. They will say that Apple has plenty of product in the pipeline. I agree. In the short term Apple Inc. will be the Apple we've known since the return of Steve, which is not the Apple I knew in 1989. Which is not a bad thing. The long term question is the one posed by David Pogue. Will Apple become an imitation of itself once the "Jobs products" and "Jobs ideas" have been flushed out the system?

I suppose we'll all know the answer to this question when the first non-Jobs product is announced.

Dealing with Stress

2011-09-19T07:42:00.001-07:00

I don't usually post health related stuff here but I thought this item from Psychology Today was something to bring to people's attention:

Animals don't think something is wrong with the world, despite their survival challenges. Reptiles have thousands of offspring and most are eaten by predators. Lions fail to catch their prey 95% of the time and often go hungry. Male mammals don't get to have sex unless they fight their way up the status hierarchy, and female mammals are dominated by older females their whole lives. Of course animals don't conceptualize their stress, or project it into the future. They release it in the moment. But the next moment they confront a new stressor. They never give up, however. They just keep trying.

As long as you keep trying, your cortisol doesn't get the better of you. You evolved for action.

A lot of times we hear about "living in the moment" and many write it off as some kind of new ageism (or whatever) but here it is, the science. It is our ability to project our fears to the future that do the most damage to us.

Humans have one kind of stress that animals don't have: awareness of our own mortality. Your brain reacts to this awareness as if it were a clear and present danger. Animals don't have enough neurons to terrify themselves with their own mental constructions. You can't escape from the knowledge that the world will spin merrily along without you some day. The thought triggers so much anxiety that people try to avoid it. They project the anxiety onto other things, like health care and finances. No amount of health care and finances will keep you alive forever, so you are better off accepting the fact that you are a vulnerable bit of protoplasm.

I've read this before in other venues and it is true. We set ourselves up failure mentally by creating anxiety about the future (near or long term). It is this fear that stops us from reaching our potential. It is our fixation on "the enemy" that also causes stress. There are a lot of people who assume that because I am "pro-black" that I spend my time worrying and thinking about what white people are doing, saying or have done or have said. I can honestly say that I don't spend the majority of my time thinking about them because I understand that which we focus on is that which we gravitate to. Better to think on and focus on where I wish to be, who I wish to be and the situation I want to have created, than to focus on those who I deem are stopping me from reaching these things.

Toll Hike Letter

2011-09-16T10:16:00.000-07:00

Dear ____________

By now you should have heard that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have decided to increase the tolls on the Hudson River crossings to $12. In light of this event I regret to inform you that I can no longer by your "boo across the bridge" as you are now in the category of "geographically unsuitable".

Don't take this personally. It's not you it' me. Actually no, it's the Port Authority. If by chance you decide to move to this side of the Hudson I may be persuaded to continue our relationship. However; until or unless that happens I will need to find a more toll suitable partner.

Sincerely yours

_____________

PS: If you do find yourself on this side of the Hudson, I'd still hit it.

About Dominique Strauss-Kahn

2011-05-15T15:11:00.000-07:00

[updated 5-16-2011]

I wasn't there for the event but the story as related via the media has me very curious. The story, as I understand it, is that Kahn was taking a shower when a maid entered his room. Kahn then came out of the shower completely naked and sexually assaulted the maid. Does this sound strange to anyone else?

I'm not saying that it is not possible that this Kahn fellow believed his own hype so much that he thought he could just randomly attempt to rape a maid in a high end hotel in his room where he is known to be staying. Most criminals try to have some kind of alibi or excuse. A person in his position knowing full well he does not have diplomatic immunity and is not on his home turf makes me think the story just putting himself out there legally is a bit off to me.

I believe that Kahn was expecting a prostitute, a high end one at that. I suppose that he usually requests role playing in which she is supposed to be "shocked" at his naked appearance, show some level of resistance and then succumb to his "manly ways and 'charm'" and end up fucking; in the bathroom makes sense. I will suppose that it is usual for these women to be "let in" by some staff (perhaps even given a key). I think he came out and did his usual 'oh well...hello madamoiselle....". I suppose she did what any actual uninterested maid would do by rebuffing his advances but keeping it "professional". Kahn, not realizing this isn't the prostitute, become more aggressive (and turned on) and when it was too late realized that this was not the prostitute and he was now on the hook for at least sexual assault and probably attempted rape (it will probably get plead down to sexual assault). Realizing the legal issue at hand he hastily dressed and grabbed his particulars and made a rush to the airport before police could arrive and did not expect that he would be unable to get out of the country.

Again, I could be wrong and he could just be the type to think he could just grab up a random maid in a high end hotel, but I know that men of his position use prostitutes on the regular and those prostitutes usually provide men like him with certain fantasies that are not likely to be had at home. The maid scenario makes sense given the apparent power dynamic involved.

Update-

Having recently reviewed the news in regards to earlier history I'm going to put the odds at 60-40 for prostitute expectations to "believing his own hype" I say that for a couple of reasons:

1) The young woman in France said that when Kahn planned on assaulting her he invited her to an empty apartment that only had a bed and a camera. So it is CLEAR that this fellow not only wanted to have sex with that woman but expected to film it. Perhaps then he has a stash somewhere with his previous "exploits".

Furthermore that assault makes sense for someone who knows what he has in mind is illegal. An apartment where there is no chance of people traffic. A place easy to remove evidence. A place where he is not known and, depending on the arrangement, one he could 'deny" being. None of which applies at the Sofitel.

The second thing that is here that underscores my earlier scenario was how the woman said his aggression came in stages, which I am all but certain happened at the Sofitel.

2)UN "Peacekeepers" and other international bodies are known to have been raping African women with impunity. The maid in question is an African (by what I heard this AM) and if this guy believes his own hype could certainly think that "poor African women" are easy prey.

3) It was said this morning that if Kahn had been on IMF business then he would have had diplomatic immunity. That changes things a bit since:

a) he could have believed himself to be on IMF business or like other business people could make it look like he was on IMF business. However the latter is unlikely given the IMF's response to this matter. It could be the case that he forgot he was not under diplomatic immunity when he caught the 'unholy spirit".

b) What then was he doing in NY at a 3k a night hotel without his wife? I understand that she has her own life and business matters, but it goes to underscore what I believe to be normal for men of his position. Was he in NY at a high dollar hotel expecting the services of a high dollar prostitute expected to role play? Does this guy have an MO of soliciting hotel maids?

His lawyer is saying that is client will plead not guilty which is completely expected. Only dumb asses without lawyers plead guilty. The experts are saying that he may either deny the charges or claim it was consensual. The former is unlikely to fly, the latter plays into the "I thought she was a prostitute" angle. Assuming they actually use that as a defense to get from rape to sexual assault. Of course he would have to admit in public that he uses the services of high dollar prostitutes when away on IMF business (or non-business). I'm not clear that he's willing to go there. Then again these charges have already ended his career and political future so aside from his wife (and the possible financial fall out from a divorce) I don't see why he shouldn't admit to that to avoid jail time.

Why So Defensive?

2011-03-04T09:01:00.001-08:00

"The dog de cry out
is deh dog weh you lick"

-Jamaican proverb

The recent article by Brienne Walsh entitled "An Open Letter to the Women Who Are Telling Me It's My Fault I'm Not Married made the above proverb come to mind. Her article was a response to a previous piece posted to the Huffington Post by Tracy McMillan entitled "Why You're Not Married"

Ms. Walsh's major point was this:

I know it's my fault I'm not married. I know that in the future, if I don't get married, it will be my fault as well. And thanks to the advancements made by the women in the generation above me, it's my decision to make.

If she had left it at that this post would not have been written because the above is the same thing I tell women, and men. If you're not married it is your "fault" (I prefer "choice"). I would add that the reasons for her current ability to chose such a lifestyle isn't only due to the advances made by women but by technology created by men. It's all symbiotic really. But that is a minor quibble. The major quibbles start here:

Because staying in a bad relationship just because it is heading towards marriage is like putting a plastic bag over your head, and just letting in enough air that you can stay alive.

Notice the quick, fast and in a hurry jump from "I'm not married" to "bad relationship". This is typical of far too many women (and men) who assume that if a relationship isn't "perfect" (whatever that may be) then it must be god awful and metaphorically stifling. I don't know what article this woman read, but McMillan's piece did not advise anyone to stay in a 'bad relationship". It did however bring up the unrealistic and completely selfish definitions that a lot of people have of "good relationship". So yeah, that sound you're hearing? That would be the dog crying out.

But Ms. Walsh wasn't finished. Instead of dissecting McMillan's piece and her 8 points, which I would have done, Walsh decides to cut to this part:

Because ultimately, marriage is not about getting something -- it's about giving it. Strangely, men understand this more than we do. Probably because for them marriage involves sacrificing their most treasured possession -- a free-agent penis -- and for us, it's the culmination of a princess fantasy so universal, it built Disneyland.

This is by and large true and the level of "Free agent penis" is directly related to a male's status. This "free agent penis" concept is particularly true in this current "monogamy as normal" social organization. I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of human sexuality but I'll say this: Monogamy is an artificial block on a male's ability to reproduce. Biologically speaking it serves him very little benefit to stay attached to a single female for his entire reproductive life. Females on the other hand naturally benefit from keeping a male around and to not have him create other children that "steal" resources away from her own. Keep this in mind because it is going to be relevant in a few.

Walsh goes into her objection to McMillan's "getting something" statement culminating in:

And so we learned how to expect literally nothing from a man. And do you know what happened because of that? We learned to let men treat us like crap. We came to believe that men were doing us a favor by settling down -- because otherwise they would be out spraying the world of willing women with their abundant seed. We were taught to be grateful if a man showed interest in us, and we became fearful at all times that he would leave us once he did. Women of my generation are still the second-class citizens of
fairy tales: only now, we don't even have the chivalry or the ever-blooming roses to comfort us in our eternal boredom.

"We learned how to expect literally nothing from a man" We? We who? And WHO taught girls this? I suggest that her problem in this regards lies with those who, while rightfully fighting for legal "first class citizenship" for women, also had the idea that they'd fuck around with certain social conventions that forced men to become responsible and marriageable. Besides, from what I've heard men were treating women like crap before women were mysteriously taught to expect "literally nothing from a man". I'm so confused.

The rest though, particularly "spraying willing women" is exactly correct though. Seriously. If you're not willing, there are others who are. And ummm that is the entire point of "the game". Catch your man (or woman) before someone else does. Apparently some women haven't come to terms with the fact that "independence" doesn't give them much of a leg up in the finding a life mate game. Don't blame me though. Blame your genes.

Besides, there she goes again with the negativity. "Boredom"? "Eternal boredom"? I do say, I think this woman really has unresolved relationship issues.

There's that dog makin' noise again.

But Walsh continues to show us just how clueless she is by giving us The Story:

A few weeks ago, I was interviewing a woman who is at the top of her chosen profession. She's a single mother to her teenage daughter. She is enormously successful, well-educated, beautiful -- and never married.

Our conversation eventually -- and inevitably -- led us to the topic of why she never married, and to illustrate the point, she told me a story. "When I was younger," she said, "I was dating a man who told me: 'You're extraordinarily smart, and you're extraordinarily beautiful. You need a man who is either so strong that he can stand up to you, or so weak that you can walk all over him. I'm just a normal man. I'm not the man for you.'"
[20 years later, they met again, and she asked him why he had married his wife. "She made good sandwiches," he said.]

So let's review this. Some presumably drop dead gorgeous woman took all her time gaining status and thought that such status would get her a man. Apparently this "extremely bright" woman never thought to evaluate the fact that in the sexual realm of humans Males display status to attract females. Males display such status in order to convey the ability to protect and provide and that they have good survival genes to pass on to offspring. Not the other way around. Furthermore; generally speaking, males who go after "high status" females, generally use said females resources to attract and impress other lesser status females. Think the guy who drives his girlfriends Benz to the club to pick up women. I cannot tell you the number of times I have heard "high status" women complain about men they "upgraded" who turned around and used that "upgrade" to get "lower status" women.

Furthermore; in this story the "high status" female apparently found some guy "hot enough" to lay with and have a child with. It doesn't surprise me at all because she's "beautiful". And "beauty" ranks no. 1 on every straight male's priority list for females. And please do not listen to these lying men who claim otherwise. Any man who claims otherwise who is not involved with a straight 0 on a 1-10 scale has proven my point.

Now in regards to the comment made by the "high status" woman's male friend in regards to the two types of men she would have to choose from. He is generally correct. I hate to say this, really I do, but I have run into so many well educated women who are downright nasty. They are generally condescending to anyone who they believe has a lesser education than they do, work a lower status job than they do or have lesser income than they do. They have nasty things to say about things that men generally like or like to do be it the music they listen to, games they play (or that they even do so), etc. I'm not saying that these women represent most or even a large percentage of "high status" women, but they are out there and they generally have one of the types of men mentioned in the quote. They either snag a man as high status or higher than she is who is very strong willed and who'll tell her to "shut the fuck up" when she gets "out of pocket". Or she gets a man whom she can manipulate and hen peck. He'll take it 'cause he knows he can't do better. This last part will probably come to a surprise to Ms. Walsh but yeah, men compromise too. Shocking I know...I know some of us actually get past the fantasies of hour glass shaped sex slaves. Shocking I know.

*eye roll*

What I'm sure Ms Walsh and Ms. High Status missed though was the real meaning behind the "sandwiches" comment. I'm going to assume that Walsh and company thought that a sandwich sealed the deal. No it did not. I would put down crispy green cash that rather than having an attitude that he owes her something, this guy's wife actually, gulp, catered to this man. She was probably the first woman who he really liked, to have went out of her way to make the sandwich where previously his girlfriends were on some "What do I look like?" or "what's wrong with your hands" shit. She probably made that sandwich with care and attention. I'll bet she was humming a tune happily too. Probably asked him if he wanted a drink to go with it. She put that joint on a clean tray and gave him a kiss on the cheek. And while he was biting into that sandwich and that feeling of satiation flowed over his body he thought of all the times she treated him well, All the women before her that gave him shit when he asked for a sandwich and perhaps one that got away who did do it for him but he was too dumb to see what he had. He thought about his friends who had been telling him he had struck gold and better "do the right thing" and he said to himself: "you know what I need to tie this up."

But I'm sure this scenario is too hard for Ms. Walsh to understand. So they'll be wondering if it was the Mayo.

Lest you think I'm being to harsh look at Ms. Walsh's next commentary:

So when you say to me, Tracy McMillan, that I have to work around a "man's fear and insecurity in order to get married," I say to you, why aren't you telling me that I should be going out to look for the men who wants a woman like me? (They do exist; some of them are my friends.) Instead of being told I need to medicate my "craziness" to pander to a man's itty-bitty oh-so-witty ego, I want a man who is every bit my match, and is not scared off by that.

Mind you I didn't quite dig McMillan (and others) constant chatter about male "insecurity" because this isn't about security as much as it is about biology. There are certainly "insecure" people out there, but there is a difference between "insecure/ social phobia" and "insecure/ biological drive". However; Walsh has a point. Why doesn't she go for men who are into women like her? Note that she doesn't answer the question. Why not? Why does Ms. Walsh have so many male "friends" who by her accounts are "into her" and is still not married? By her own account they are "secure". So what's the problem? The problem is the same biological human sexuality issue that spans "status". She is probably not attracted to them "like that" and she is probably holding onto some fantasy man that none of those men qualify for. What's that? Yes the dog making noise again. She's all ME-I-ME-I-ME-I.

E-I E-I oooooooooh.

I believe McMillan had a point on that.

The last point that Walsh makes, really pissed me off though. Really:

When are women going to start telling women not to be afraid of raising children by themselves?

It might not be easy for us to be single mothers, but it would surely be workable, just another way of doing things that would have the same balance of happiness, sadness, and hardship as any other life I may choose to live.

I don't do running the man out the family unit. I don't. In African-America, there is, unfortunately a pandemic of children living with one parent. I'm not cool with it. It is not a good thing to have males disconnected from family and child rearing. In the end, such an idea that children should be had without a man is to turn men into simply sperm factories. It is no less objectification than what many feminist speak about in regards to women. What's even worse is that rampant single motherhood contributes to the idea that Walsh began with: not expecting anything from men. What's worse though, is that in reference to my discussion on monogamy, a woman who decides to have a child on her own, immediately drops many potential mates from her pool as a good number of men are unwilling to provide for another man's children. And it is entirely within their right to make such a decision. Of course Walsh does not care about that because it's all about her.

Overall though Walsh missed the entire point of McMillan's piece:

All that I'm trying to say, ladies, is stop trying to frighten me; make me feel empowered. Speak to me like I can make my own decisions, and don't demean the difficulties I may be having finding a guy who I think is worth my time and energy.

The entire point of McMillan's piece was to help people like Ms. Walsh make their own decisions by showing the fucked up thinking processes that are preventing some women who claim to want to be married from doing so. McMillan's piece highlights that some of the difficulties that some women are facing are of their own making. Any mature person would actually understand that. Immature people, and I think Walsh qualifies as one, are always looking to blame other people.

Those men are insecure.
Those men are intimidated by x y or z.
I want a b or c and if I can't have it then I'll take my dildo and go home.
I won't do A B or C in order to get him and it's his fault for expecting that.

Everything for them is the fault of someone or something "out there" instead of focusing on what they have to do to get what they claim they want. If a woman doesn't want to be married that's her business. And really she ought not indulge in "why you're not married" articles because they are not for her. And when someone asks here why she isn't married she should say like I do:

It's a result of choices I have made. And until I make new and different choices my status will likely stay the same. No one else is to blame.

I'll close with a Yoruba proverb that many of us "single and old" people need to take to heart:

Don't let best become the enemy of good.

How Nokia Lost It

2011-02-10T06:56:00.001-08:00

The recent news of the new CEO at Nokia deciding that Nokia would need to go in a different direction and jump off the "burning platform" did not surprise me at all. As a consumer of their Internet Tablet product I completely understand why Nokia is in the bind that it is in. Let me explain.

Nokia had the jump on touchscreen and wifi enabled devices when it released the Internet Tablet 770. I did not have one of these largely because I had never heard of it. Don't be surprised if you had never heard of it either. Nokia did a shit job of marketing the device. The excuse given for this "nit marketing" was that it was an "experimental device" and some sort of step one in five or so steps.

Seriously.

When the buzz about the upcoming IPhone was around Nokia released the N800 Internet tablet as an update to the 770. I bought one of these and still use it. Like the 770 it had a touchscreen, full web browsing featuring flash lite but also had a swiveling camera and an upgraded processor. It did not have a cell radio nor built in GPS but it could tether to a phone via DUN and to a GPS receiver via Bluetooth. Believe me when I say that the tablet was at its best when connected to the net at all times. It was arguably technically superior to the iPhone in many ways. However; the problem was this: Every time someone saw the Tablet the first question they asked was "what kind of phone is that?" and once I said that it was not a phone, all interest was lost. If you have to explain what your product is and more than one sentence, it's likely to fail. With the IPhone entering the market this was especially true for Nokia. But it gets worse.

Nokia still insisted that the n800 was stage 2 of whatever and not for "consumers". This line of "thinking" was very prominent in discussion boards such as Internet Tablet Talk (now talk.maemo.org) where many of the board members dismissed the IPhone as a toy for people who were suckers to the Jobs Reality Distortion Field. Many of these persons have since left for Android devices.

Ahem.

Many of these individuals would discuss the finer points of phone data plans for tethering. Which GPS receiver was best. What other OS's they could install, installing replacement browsers, e-mail clients and the REAL problem: What OS bug they found (and there were plenty).

Many bugs simply went unfixed by Nokia. The phrase we learned was "fixed in Freemantle" meaning the current OS at the time, Diablo, was not going to get any more updates and that device we had was now obsolete. As a matter of fact there was a group of members who created an update to deal with many known issues. Nice of them but really, that should have come from Nokia.

Thanks.

Of course the owners of the IT 770 knew that planned quick obsolescence was coming because their device had been abandoned by Nokia son after the N800 was released. So we knew it was coming. Having customers who know their stuff is going to be dumped soon is also a shit move. Many were in denial and merely did not want to believe this would happen to us so soon. Oh and did I mention that any OS update required complete wipe of the OS and applications? Oh fun. To Nokia's credit they fixed that particularly bad process...right before abandoning the platform and moving to the N900.

The N900 was an actual phone. Of course they shrunk the screen. Older developers soon dropped app compatibility with the previous systems. New ones would say they didn't have the time to code their
Product for the obsolete N8xx series or wimpy had no interest.

Small note I skipped the n810 which is was merely a cosmetic update to e n800 with the major changes being a slide out keyboard, onboard GPS and a better screen. They did remove the full SD slot for a micro SD slot rendering many of our SD cards....you know. It you had an 800 the incentive to upgrade depended largely on whether you wanted onboard GPS and/or the keyboard.

Sucks to be us.

The N900 was released about a year ago and was actually a tempting buy aside from it's tendency to eject it's USB port which also serves as the power port. It too was under marketed by Nokia. sorry I was too generous. not marketed at all in the US. Why?

1) It was step3 or 4 of step whatever.
2) not a consumer device.

And my favorite:
3) obsolete 'cause Meego was going to eat Maemo and well, see what happened to the N8xx series.

Oh did I mention that it only worked on T-mobile's 3G band? Seriously. I am not making this up. Six bills and 2G throughput for non t-mobile customers, which would be most of us in the US.

So in essence the whole Internet Tablet thing that Nokia was doing was adjust a bunch of "history repeating". Where we the so called geek consumer was asked to pay $400 to $600 to beta test their product which should have been their future but were just steps of some process. To nowhere apparently.

So what really doomed Nokia?

1) they treated their Internet tablets like some back lot paper airplane experiment which it charged it's customers for.

2) No US advertising to speak of. If I hadn't seen a report about the N800 in Arstechnica.com I would have never even known the thing existed. I still have not seen a single advertisement for the current IT. Of course that is due to item 1 above.

3) listening to it's geek base internal and/or external who said they would not want. Cell radio in it. Tech savvy geek are not the mass market. If you're seeking mass market appeal, they are the wrong demographic to listen to. Had I been able to say "yes this is a phone" there is no number of sales that I think I could have made of my current device.

4) lack of OS updates and applications. Nothing says "we don't give a damn" more than a lack of fixes and improvements on a regular basis for a product. That the mail app hangs regularly and chews battery in the process is something that ought to have been fixed. The fact that the browser Daemon will sit and chew battery after the browser quits ought to have been fixed. The fact that the swivel camera would not re-orientate whe the camera was facing away from the user ought go have been fixed. I should not have to shell out 4 to 6 hundred bucks for basic fixes to software.

So yeah, Nokia's on a burning platform and they're the one that set fire to it, fed it fuel and air while creating "bubble notifications" for Symbian.

Nokia is going to have to do that thing called advertising. You know, print, web and TV adverts. Their geek base is gone with a move to Windows phone OS deal with it. Whatever Nokia puts out it needs to be supported and targeted at consumers which means regular OS updates to fix issues and create more value as the product ages. Abandoning a product a year or less after it comes to market is simply not acceptable for a product that runs 600 bucks. Nokia needs to learn from the dumb stuff it did with what should have been a successful product, the Internet Tablet, and not repeat those errors.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Lessons Learned from Horror Flicks

2010-12-10T07:03:00.001-08:00

I run. Like sub 6 min. miles when I choose. As I went up in pace I learned e hard way that for most of us, we're not going to run 12 miles at the same pace that we run a 5k. Not a few of us go out way too fast and get caught somewhere along the race by someone else who we "left in the dust" at the beginning of the race. Which brings me to Jason.

Those of you familiar with the Halloween series knows that Jason, perhaps the slowest moving serial killer in movie history almost always manages to catch his prey. Jason paces himself. After all he can't be all out of breath and passed out when he finally catches his victim. No, Jason knows that most amateurs will bolt from the start line, or in his case, the very sight of him. He knows that most people cannot keep that initial pace up for very long and once winded will slow to a pace that is much slower than a faster pace they could have sustained for a longer period of time. It is at that point that even at a slower pace, Jason can catch up and decapitate his victim.

So the lesson is: run your race and keep your pace. It's the best way to survive.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

New Kindle for the Web Beta

2010-12-07T07:07:00.001-08:00

Works on my Nokia N800 in the Tear Browser. The full screen mode is the best bet. Only fits a few lines of text on screen though. How about that for an "ancient" piece of hardware?

Elin is Pookie

2010-05-26T08:30:00.000-07:00

A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere -MLK Jr.

Stop ya eye rollin' over that quote and read on.

When Arizona passed their "immigration enforcement" law, SB 1040, people went nuts. They called the law legalized racial profiling. One would have thought that somehow prior to the passage of that bill that actual legalized racial profiling hadn't already been standard op in the country. I had long pointed out that hundreds of thousands of people in NYC, particularly black men are stopped and frisked when they have committed no crimes which is a blatant violation of their 4th Amendment rights. This has been going on for years but it was not seen as a big issue, Why? In my opinion it's the general idea that niggas are criminal and so it's OK. Well having allowed that precedent to go unchallenged we now have Arizona. Hence the reason for the quote regarding a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

So those of us who understand that when an injustice happens to someone "way over there" or "who can afford it", it poses a danger to the rest of us. Thus we have before us the Tiger Woods divorce fiasco.

Black and Bougie posted a piece in regards to "Pookies" that contained this gem:

Yesterday, @CarolynEdgar started discussing Elin Woods' alleged request for $750MM in a divorce from Le Tigre. This sent a bunch of men into apoplectic fits of Twitter rage. Then it was pointed out that for most of them… this wasn't going to be an issue. It was further pointed out that in this day and age when professional women outnumber and out earn men (amongst the African American ranks) chances were that in a lot of divorces, the woman would end up paying the man anyway. This segued into her hilarious rant on why it's a not always a great for an upwardly mobile chick to date Pookie or Ray-Ray:

Apoplectic fits of Twitter rage? really? I love (sarcasm) how certain females love to misstate what men are thinking or doing. Love it. The author trots out the tired line of "well that's not going to apply to them". Really? I refer the reader back to the above discussion of Arizona. The supposedly small and insignificant decision "over there" will in fact affect them should they get married and unfortunately get divorced. And, ahem, that goes for women as well.

Mind you, the piece goes into an excellent discussion of why Pookie is best left alone or at least why he ought to be carefully watched. However; This isn't about defending Pookie, or Woods for that matter. This is about, shall we say, equality.

I was reading the Twitter discussion about Pookies and "Mr Fix it". The discussion could be summed up like this:

Beware of men who have little to offer by way of income or other assets, because after you pull them up and set them up, you may end up divorced in which case you, the high net worth female, will find yourself out of a house or other "marital property" and paying for a man who didn't do much for you. Except perhaps warm the sheets.

Honestly I can't disagree with this statement. But it cuts both ways. Which brings us to the soon to be ex Woods.

It is reported that Elin Wood's is asking, straight faced, for $750 million.

Yes. $3/4 billion. Pause and let that amount sink in for a bit.

These same females who are correctly objecting to Pookie getting a free ride off their hard work actually AGREE that Elin Wood's deserves $3/4 billion.

Sheer hypocracy.

Let's run down Elin's history shall we. She met Tiger Wood's in 2001. At which time Mr. Woods was already winning major tournaments. In fact by the time Wood's married Elin, he was on a record winning streak. What was Elin doing in 2001? She was a Nanny.

A Nanny.

In three years Elin goes from Nanny to the wife of the greatest golfer in the world. That's like Pookie going from parking cars to Oprah's mansion. OK?

And let me ask. What exactly did Elin do to enable Mr. Woods to earn his money? Was she his trainer? Nope. Would anyone argue that Tiger Wood's trainer is perhaps the one person other than Mr. Woods who has had a direct impact on Mr. Woods ability to earn? Has that trainer (or trainers) been paid $750 million for their services? If not, could we not argue straight faced that if anyone actually invested in Tiger Woods in such a manner that actually produced income that it would be Woods' trainers?

Lets be clear here. Elin Woods was not your typical wife. Unlike those women I see everyday. She was not working a full time job to help ends meet. She didn't leave the job to come home and take care of the kids and cook dinner and clean the house like so many women do. No. Lets be honest here. The Woods had a maid or two or three. They likely had in house chefs. They hired grounds keepers to take care of the lawn. Neither Woods probably ever had to worry about a car note or even owned a vehicle long enough for it to break down.

Elin didn't have to clean shit. Elin didn't have to cook shit. Elin didn't have to get up early in the morning to go to some job not paying her what the dude in the next cubicle with less qualifications than her was earning. No, Elin Woods went from Nanny to Escalade, beach front property, 1st class air travel, Shopping at stores I don't even bother looking in the window of. First class all the way. All Elin had to do for all that was show up at tournaments and cock her legs to the side on occasion.

Elin is Pookie. You can't argue that Pookie ought to be avoided cause he'll use your shit and then try to claim more at the divorce hearing and then say that Elin deserves $750 million (greater than the GDP of some nations) when she brought absolutely NOTHING to Wood's earning potential other than white skin and blond hair.

Some will argue that the $750 includes child support. Look, maids and nanny's would have been taking care of Woods' kids anyway. If the judge is so concerned about them being taken care of then that judge ought to award custody to Woods.

Now some idiot will misconstrue this as defending Tiger Woods. I could care less about what Tiger Woods does. What I do care about is the precedent that is set when someone can lay claim to someone's hard earned income, when they had a negligible part in the earning of that income and I don't care what gender they are. Such a precedent is a danger to everyone.

Does Elin deserve a payout? Absolutely. Mr. Woods stepped out on his marriage contract. He should not have. I have no problem with even a multi-million dollar payout for that. Personally I'd cap that at $50 million which I still think is excessive for someone who brought next to nothing to the marriage. I would not agree to her not being able to speak on her relationship. Woods cheated. That's just one of the fallouts. But if she did agree to such a gag, then I would up the award due to the fact that such a gag would impact her earning potential.

So lets be fair. Elin has shown that she is a gold digger period. She knows she hasn't done anything warranting $3/4 billion but she's asking for it anyway. We, well actually the women supporting this bid ought to recognize that she is no different to Pookie and stop defending that demand.

The Problem With Statutory Rape Laws

2010-05-14T11:07:00.001-07:00

The recent arrest of LT over his alleged statutory rape of a 16 year old has gotten me to thinking about the issue of statutory rape. For those not familiar with the term, statutory rape is when a minor engages in sexual intercourse. Period. Under the law a minor cannot consent to sexual intercourse. It is an odd law when you really think about it. In fact the law is so odd that in many states (if not all) there are various exceptions. These exceptions generally surround sexual intercourse between minors of similar age. But those exceptions highlight the serious constitutional problem with statutory rape laws. Let me highlight a few of them:

1) Rape by definition requires intent. No one "accidentally" rapes a person. A rapist explicitly does not inquire, care or regard the wishes of his or her victim. A rapist can never say that he or she "didn't know" that the person did not consent. Even in the case of a person who has sex with a person who is knocked out drunk cannot claim ignorance. A passed out person cannot give consent simply because they are physically unable to do so.

Statutory rape, being defined as rape defies this logic because statutory rape laws do not require any intent on the part of the person charged with this crime. which leads us to problem two:

2) Unlike the vast majority of laws (if not all, I'm not a lawyer so I can't make an authoritative statement on that), statutory rape is a charge with no defense. It is the only law I know of that completely bypasses a person's ability to defend his or herself. All the government has to show is that the victim is in fact a minor. That is all. Think about this for a minute is there any other felony that one cannot argue a defense for?

Lets make up an hypothetical situation. You are a baggage handler. A co-worker who is a terrorist hands you a bag full of explosives set to go off while the plane is in the air. You put the bag on the plane. Plane blows up. Hundreds of people die. The bag is identified and video is presented that shows that you put the bag on the plane. Case is closed.

You, the hypothetical baggage handler would immediately argue that:

1) You had no idea the bag was a bomb. If you had known you would not have put the bag in the plane. However if the law was written the way the statutory rape laws are, that would not be a valid defense. The fact that you put the bag on the plane meant that you committed a terrorist act. End of story.

Or

2) The person who handed you the bag represented himself (clothes, demeanor, etc) as an authorized and trusted airport personnel whom you had reasonable expectations to not be trying to get you to commit a crime. Again if the law was written the way the statutory rape laws are, that would also not be a valid defense. That you did not know that the person was not a criminal with criminal intent would not absolve you from the fact that you put the bag on the plane. Furthermore, that you did not inquire, on the spot, for paperwork proving that said co-worker was not a criminal and that you did not open this bag and check it for explosives, would also not a viable defense because again, you put the bag on the plane and therefore you committed a terrorist act.

Clearly no reasonable person would accept such a legal prosecution. Clearly the baggage handler was duped into aiding an actual criminal into committing a crime the handler had no intentions of committing. No prosecutor in his or her right mind would prosecute the baggage handler even though 100's of people are dead.

In reality the baggage handler would be arrested and interrogated. They would tell their story, the person who gave them the bag would be identified, etc. etc. and that person would be sent home. Why would this happen? Because the law has to recognize that people are sometimes duped into abetting or committing criminal offenses they would not have committed. When this is done by law enforcement it is called entrapment. When done by civilians it is referred to as blackmail, fraud, extortion, etc.

This brings us back to LT. According to news reports LT's position was that he asked this girl her age. She told him she was 19 when in fact she was 16. I haven't seen her. Nor do I know how she was dressed, whether she had makeup on, the lighting in the room, etc. I do know that 16 year olds can in fact be mistook for 18-19 year olds and some 18-19 year olds can be mistook for minors.

A lot of people want to make the argument that a "grown man" like LT ought not be fooling around with 19 YO. Maybe so. But that's not illegal. Our personal morality on the matter isn't legally relevant. What is relevant is that in NYS if a minor gives a false statement of his or her age to a would be statutory rapist that is the basis of a valid defense (well if you have a decent lawyer). In LT's case the "victim" made an official statement that she told LT she was 19.

What is bothersome about many of the statements made by people about the case purporting that 16 year olds are incapable of decision making is that if a 16 yo commits murder, the state demands justice. While that 16 yo is tried in juvenile court, there is still an expectation of responsibility on the part of this minor.
Such a thing shows a two facedness about statutory rape laws. How can a 16 year old minor be so unable to consent to sexual intercourse, but can be held responsible for committing a rape themselves or stealing, killing, committing assault, etc.

Some say that we can't expect a 16 year old to tell the truth. That argument doesn't make sense either. 16 year olds can get on the stand and be expected to testify truthfully. They are expected to be truthful and pick out their attackers in a lineup. How then do we suddenly say that in reference to sexual behavior and telling their age they suddenly lack the capacity to tell the truth? Fact is that 16 year olds make decisions about who they will or will not have sex with all the time. They know full well that they can get an STD. They know they can get pregnant. There is little mystery in regards to sex with a 16 year old unless that minor has been locked up in a place with no access to TV, radio or internet.

Let's be honest about what statutory rape laws are for. They are for teachers who start sexual relationships with their students. They are for baby sitters or other adults who know full well the age of their victims but still initiate or accept an invitation for a sexual relationship. They are for pedophiles who are online and seek out minors. They are for pedophiles who stalk school yards and other places where persons known to be minors are in regular attendance. They are for persons who carry out long term relationships with an adult in order to have access to their children. In short statutory rape laws exist to prosecute those who knowingly and willingly engage in sexual intercourse with a known minor. When the law does not take into account that there are a minority of cases where the supposed "rapist" does not know the true age of the victim and it is reasonable that said perpetrator could think that the person is in fact "legal" then that law is very faulty. I dare say that such a law is unconstitutional. Remember that the founders were of the opinion that it is better to let a 100 guilty people go free than to let 1 innocent "man" lose his liberty.

Why does this matter? It matters because once a law is on the books that takes away a defendants right to show that he or she had no intention of participating in a crime, then the door is open for more laws to be written that prosecute people without any viable defense. And we know this has already happened.

Text manipulation on the iPad

2010-04-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

I complained about it in earlier posts and I'm not the only one:

I find highlighting text, copying and pasting, and other forms of text manipulation to be infuriating on the iPad. It isn’t that it's a bad system—it’s probably as good as it can be, given that the device relies entirely on touch. An external keyboard would make the application better, but at that point you're practically carrying around a laptop wherever you go. The iPad, a keyboard, and Pages could make a decent word processor for a kid, but with the abundance of cheap laptops, desktops, and older machines that can do the same thing for cheaper, it’s hard to justify the cost.

Arstechnica

I absolutely dread having to go an manipulate text I've entered on the iPad. As I indicated before, you're in for a "warm" time if you have to place the cursor within a word or God forbid a URL. Zooming helps a bit but still this needs to be addressed.

Another iPad Suggestion

2010-04-14T07:51:00.000-07:00

Reading about the 256MB RAM and the lack of swapping on the iPad/iPhone OS, I'm thinking that Apple ought to take a page from Nokia Maemo (soon Meego). On my ancient N800 (you note I keep mentioning that it is ancient), I can assign memory swap to one of the SD cards. That enables more apps to run concurrently before they enter a sleep mode (a little "zzz' on the application icon).

I see no reason why an iPad (or iPhone for that matter) could not have it's memory extended to the built in 16,32 or 64 GB of solid state RAM sitting in the iPad. Is it slower than the main 256MB? Probably. Is it as slow as a spinning disk? Absolutely not. Maybe we'll see something like that in the 4.0 OS (or 4.1) particularly for the iPad. But really Safari ought not have to reload tabbed pages. That just needs to stop.

More iPad issues

2010-04-14T06:06:00.000-07:00

And so last night after unsuccessfully scoring a decent iPad case/stand combo I perched the thing on a laptop angled stand and attempted a blog entry. Now on my laptop I have the option of using a stand alone weblog editor or blogger's online tool. On the iPad I had no such choice (though I suppose I could have used the notepad). Therefore I loaded up the blogger editor in Safari and went to work. Part way through the blog post I needed to cut and paste text from another website so I went and called up the website which refreshed. That can be bad but it wasn't. This time. I copied the text and went back to the blogger page to find that Safari had to reload the page. It "reloaded" a brand new blank blog post page. That was not cool at all. Fortunately blogger auto-saves your work so I was able to get back to it from the saved draft. God forbid someone is writing in an online tool that does not auto-save, they are one "let me check that last tab" click away from a world of hurt.

Then I needed to style the text I use custom CSS for blockquotes and bold items so I always add them in manually. DO you know how many keystrokes it takes to get a bracket? What is worse is that Safari believes that < blockquote > should be < block quote > and will GLADLY auto-correct for you.

So I will definitely be in need of a stand alone blogging tool for the iPad. Typing on it with a prop is not that bad at all (noted quibbles aside). Multi-tasking cannot come soon enough for this purpose. It is sad that my ancient N800, 3 years old @ 400 Mhz and 128MB RAM can out-blog this new kit.

If anyone knows a decent iPad weblog app drop me a note.

[update]
Some people may ask why I don't get the iPad dock and a wireless keyboard. Let me answer that right quick.

The iPad dock allows for portrait only orientation. As much as I can appreciate the throwback to manual typewriters I'd prefer landscape for that. Secondly I don't believe that the iPad ought to need a physical keyboard to write at length. As I indicated, once I got the iPad on a stand I was satisfied with the speed at which I could type on the onscreen keyboard in landscape mode.

I currently have an Addesso flexible USB keyboard for use with my N800. I don't like BT keyboards because that is yet another set of batteries I have to think about. If there was a iPad connector that would allow a keyboad to be connected to the iPad sans dock I would purchase it without delay. Still though I would prefer for the iPad to be fully functional without such attachments.

[Update 2]

Seems that the BlogPress app may fill my wants here. Too bad I can't try before I buy.

More iPad woes

2010-04-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

I just tweeted about the inanity that is attempting to place the cursor somewhere in a word and the apparent inability to copy just the text of a link rather than the whole URL. But the following is an example of just how bad some things on the iPad is. As any iPad owner knows, there is no viewable filesystem or a means of filesharing. Yes there's a SMB client, but it does not allow two way sharing. anyway here's another example of the truely sorry state of file access on the iPad:

it gets worse. There is no way to share the same document with more than one iPad app. For example, a Word document imported to Pages cannot be accessed by any other iPad app, even other apps that can open Word documents. The only work-around is to import the document twice, once for each app. Further, if you ever delete an app from your iPad, any documents stored with that app are deleted as well. Thus, to make sure your documents are preserved, copy them to your Mac before deleting the relevant iPad app. Shared files are included in a Sync backup of your iPad (at least that what this Apple support article claims), but they are not accessible for a restore of specific files.

Just wow.

iPad

2010-04-09T12:05:00.000-07:00

having my iPad for a week now (and accidentally leaving it at home attached to the charger) there are few thoughts I want to share about it.

As others have pointed out the iPad is really a gateway. It is whatever app you're running on it. It gets out the way and really going from it to my desktop or laptop is pretty jarring. the "Oh I have to grab this thing over here to point and click on something over there" paradigm really looks old.

I can really see getting work done on it. The key being to stop thinking that it should work like your desktop. But as it stands there are definitely some things that need addressing.

I did not get the stand. Big mistake. I will be rectifying that mistake this weekend. You simply cannot type at any length without a stand. Some people are using bluetooth keyboards with it. I'm not quite ready to go there yet. But I am a semi-touch typist, so I expect some kind of slowdown. Once I have the stand though I'm going to attempt to go the week without the laptop.

Multi-tasking. Yeah this needs to happen. Particularly for things like Twitter and IM. I wanted to download an IM program but I was not going to pay to have an IM program that can't be run in the background. No, I will not. My Nokia Internet Tablet N800 with less available RAM and a 400 MHz old school armel processor can multi-task. The A4 should as well. Yes I know OS 4.x will address that on the iPad "later" but really, this needs to ship sooner rather than later.

File access: It is clear that the original idea for this thing is to consume media not create or share it. That view is Myopic. I have already created documents on this thing that I needed to send to another computer. Lack of networking reared it's head in the most unholy way. Of course if I had multi-tasking I could have done what I wanted on the 'Pad without involving my laptop but well, that's point number two.

Worse though is that I cannot access my NAS. Well I could if I install an app that would access it via SMB. But then, as far as I've read I would have no means of saving it back to the NAS. That's just nasty. This lack of AFP access to volumes is a huge deal. the iPad is certainly capable of more than what it has by default. It is certainly more capable of being a media consumption device. I certainly can see doing a LOT on it that previously was done on my laptop.

Bluetooth: What is with this bluetooth module? I tried to connect my Nokia to it to act as an input device and it failed because it didn't recognize it as a keyboard. It simply ignored my bluetooth GPS module. Why? I can't tether it to my cell phone to get internet access. Why? Oh that's that ATT thing right? I don't want to go the Jailbreak route but it's pretty inexcusable to not be able to pair with a bluetooth GPS on something that has maps. It's not cool to not be able to tether either. I MIGHT get one of those MIFI devices but I shouldn't have to.

That's it for now.

About that Cali Prius

2010-03-16T13:08:00.000-07:00

I don't know what to think about this. On the one hand it entirely possible that an electronic fault occurred in such a manner that this fellow could go 30 miles without being able to stop his car. It's possible. A computer can have a process go haywire while the rest of the system keeps going fine.

I don't know enough about the systems on the Prius but I have a few questions:

1) What were the conditions of this fellow's brakes prior to this incident? I work on cars as a hobby and have many discussions with my mechanic about how people run their brakes down to the back plate and do irrepairable damage to their rotors. And front brakes, which the reports say were the most worn, are the first to go due to weight shifts to the front of the vehicle upon braking.

2)Was the brake regenerative system working? My understanding is that when the brakes are applied, there are magnets at the wheels that take the rotational energy of the wheels and converts that to electrical energy to charge the batteries. I understand that the Tesla roadster's system is so aggressive that merely taking one's foot off the gas causes that system to kick in to the extent that Tesla has the brake lights come on anytime the accelerator is depressed. So does the Prius operate this way and if so, is there any record of that system being active? If so I would think that 30 miles of brake riding would have given the battery a nice charge.

3) How did the officer at the scene know that the driver was 'standing on the brakes"? I don't know about you but I cannot see the feet of the driver in the car next to me. We only have the man's word that he was in fact ONLY pressing the brakes. I have driven behind people who have locked their brakes, it is not a pleasant smell and being a convertible owner I can tell you that I can smell brake lock at least a half mile away from the vehicle that is experiencing it. Speaking of brake lock even if the front brakes failed, the rear brakes are supposed to be able to stop a vehicle as per federal regulations. Yes it will take longer, but they are supposed to do so as per fed reg. So that leads to my next question.

4) What's up with the hydraulics? My understanding of all these computerized cars is that even if an electronic part fails, the hydraulic system is supposed to work as a fail safe. Is braking on these vehicles at a point now where braking is no longer done by the driver? Why not? It is one thing for a computer to be able to actuate the brakes in case of emergencies such as loss of traction or the like, but complete decoupling of brakes from the foot sounds like a serious liability issue to me. Think about it. If you are not physically responsible for actuating the brakes, then brake failure can be attributed to the vehicle with no liability on the owner. This case underscores it. Can Toyota prove that it's system worked at the time of the incident beyond reasonable doubt? Absolutely not. In a foot activated hydraulic system it can be demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that a driver used or did not use the brake. It can be proven beyond reasonable doubt that the hydraulics were to spec or not.

5) About those electric motors. If I read the schematics correctly, the Prius has electric motors that drive the wheels directly. Is it entirely possible that the engine itself was deactivated but the electric motors, which are designed to run even if the IC engine is not, kept running? My understanding is that the electric motors on these things produce 268ft/lbs maximum torque at low rpm ( for comparison my 1997 Z3 with a 2.8 liter engine has 190 hp/ 206 lb/ft torque. My 318i with a 1.8 liter 4 cylinder has 138 hp and 129 lb/ft torque.)

So combined the electric motor and the IC on a Prius could top 350 lb/ft which is sports car territory and shoddy brakes could possibly be overcome by a runaway drive train though for 30 miles at 90 mph? I doubt it.

In this case all the driver has to do is point to the Toyota recalls and stand his ground. At this point I see nothing that can be proven in court that points to his negligence or fraud because no one can prove that his computer wasn't working at THAT moment in time.

Adobe isn't in the Flash business

2010-02-02T12:54:00.000-08:00

From John Nack.

Reminds me of a conversation I had with my mother on Sunday in regards to the company she works for. I've been telling her that she should be telling them to stop thinking of themselves as a "magazine producer" and think of themselves as information peddlers. They used to use magazines as means of peddling information but that mode of delivery is clearly on the wane. I was saying that they need to get on the iPad wagon but quick.

I was also referencing Honda. I recalled a video I saw where Honda was discussing it's newest human "enhancement" of legs that attach to your legs. Why would Honda be doing that? They are a transportation company. Not a car company. Not a bike company. A transportation company.

The iPad is going to make people re-evaluate WHAT they are doing and realize that the "how" they were doing it was merely incidental.

Ignore the Naysaying "Nerds"

2010-01-30T10:38:00.001-08:00

I want people to remember a few things. When the Mac came out with it's GUI it was dismissed as a toy. Later the entire publishing industry was changed. Music production changed. and PC's went from DOS to windows.

The Wii was derided as being underpowered. No way could it compete with the XBox and Playstation 3 that had all the technological bells and whistles. Ahem. How many Wii's have been sold to date? How many homes is the Wii in. And most importantly how many homes is a Wii in that previously never had or even considered a game console?

When the iPod came out. Oh it's too expensive. Oh no one is going to pay for all that when they can get a (insert now bankrupt or dead last place company name here). Yeah OK.

When the iPhone came out. How many people dismissed it? Oh it can't do this. it can't do that. It doesn't have this. It doesn't have that. And how many iPhones have been sold. And how many businesses write special apps for it? And....

I look at some of these "intelligent" critics and think of the housing market bubble. Most of the experts didn't see it coming. Oh there were a few of us who sounded the alarm. Who refused to put our money into what we knew were inflated homes. Yeah. experts who get paid way more than I to make predictions on simple shit like should home prices be going up 50% every two years missed the boat.

They are missing the boat here. Like I said in my previous post, this device and the multiple others that will come along is going to challenge people to reconsider how they compute. Do they use a laptop because it is in fact the best device for the job at hand, or because it's simply the only device available or used to. Change is coming folks the iPad is the first (to market) device to spark the change. Catch the wave. This is change you can believe in.

iPad

2010-01-29T09:36:00.001-08:00

I am excited about the iPad. I am excited about the iPad in a way I was not excited by the iPod Touch or iPhone. I'm a long time Mac user that uses a Nokia Internet Tablet (N800) and while many of my peers in the Internet Tablet scene are skewering the iPad, I am very excited about this product. Let me explain why.

When I was a kid, I used to come home from school and watch Inspector Gadget. I was supposed to be doing homework but, there I was. And while Mr. Gadget was amusing with his umbrellas and long arms and feet. I wanted Penny's Computer Book.

I wanted it bad.

I wanted it so badly that I set out to make my own. I was an inventive kid. I made a computer book from a cassette tape case, a solar powered calculator and a set of headphone speakers. Since I didn't want to see wires all over, I used aluminum foil to trace leads along the cassette case. I was proud of my work. I also got odd looks from people when I whipped it out in public.

Going further I took a quiz-wiz and made a larger model of my Computer Book with a better calculator and better speakers.

Then I discovered Star Trek the next Generation. I wanted one of those pads. I wanted to touch a screen and make shit happen. I didn't want to flip open something. I didn't want to type at a keyboard. I didn't want a little scroll ball. I didn't to find somewhere to perch a mouse. I wanted to tap a screen and have shit happen. The iPad is my Star Trek pad.

It is the future of casual computing and all the people moaning about what it doesn't have and can't do are missing the point entirely. This is not about having a terminal (though I'm sure there will be an app for that). It is not about what low level file IO you can do. It's not about installing every codec known to exist.

This is about doing away with what we commonly think of as The GUI Experience. It is the removal of unnecessary tool bars and mice pointers. It's about making your program act intuitively so that menus, when needed only show up for the task at hand. It is about the OS getting out the way so you can do stuff. Think about it. It is a computer where you never have to say to yourself: Where's the mouse pointer?

So do I need to flip out a laptop to check the news websites? Do I need to log into a computer and load up a desktop to check Facebook? When I'm on my couch do I really want to flop open, and make space for my laptop being careful to not block the vents? No.

You know what blew me away? When I saw the presentation on Google Maps and they jumped to street view. That blew me away. It was my Penny's computer book experience. Yes, I can access street view on my Nokia N800. Painfully. It's probably faster on the N900. But it's nowhere near as polished.

Nowhere as polished.

The other things that got my attention was the Brushes application. Again I have an app on my Nokia that does the same thing. But to have that on a 9.7 inch screen? All touch? Again this is the WACOM tablet a lot of artists have been waiting on.
I foresee drum machines and the like. All touch interfaced and polished.

And that is the point. This is not a point and click, use the stylus, crammed down desktop OS. I did that when I installed KDE on my N800. You know what? I got really tired of trying to hit miniature menus and menu-items. I got tired of menus and preference panes that literally fell off the screen. I'm sure some people like it. And they can feel free to not buy an iPad.

Are there problems with the iPad. Certainly. I noticed that the special event presentation excluded any mention of iChat. Makes sense since the iPad is not a primarily typing device but we all know that iChat can do video. So the lack of a front facing camera is a problem. It should be there and in my opinion should have been there from launch.

Another thing is that I'd take GPS built in. If I'm traveling I'd love to have the tablet show me where I am. I use my N800 as my Travel GPS device.

I don't want another data plan to pay for. I have a phone that can tether. I want tethering on the device. I know Apple is playing nice with ATT (for what good reason I don't know) but iPad owners ought to be able to tether with any phone capable of doing so and reach the internet. I do this with my 2007 Internet Tablet. It's 2010, enough with the "do not tether" and the extra tethering fees.

Really.

I'm going to get the 16GB WIFI version not just because I'm cheap but because I don't intend to move all my music to it. I'll keep using my 20GB iPod for that (yes I still have and use it regularly). I don't intend to do much video or gaming on it (prefer my DS and consoles for that). I do intend for it to do the things I generally lug my laptop around for: calendar, e-mail, books and internet reference material all the things Steve Jobs mentioned at the beginning of the presentation. At the cost of the 16GB model (roughly the same as a Mini) That is a bargain. I'll do my video editing and other development stuff on my larger and more appropriate machines just like they do in Star Trek.

I'm very excited about this product. I think there are a lot of people who simply do not get it. Many of these individuals are very bright but are too wedded to the current relatively complex means of computing. There will be laptops and desktops for them. And they can sit and bask about what new trick they did on their device while at their day jobs. The rest of us will be using the new paradigm and making paid applications to run on it and content to show on it and the ones that will surely come after.

Ultimately you'll know if an iPad is the device for you when you evaluate what you do with your current computer that absolutely needs a KB and mouse.

Then you'll look at what absolutely needs a KB and consider the accessory KB.

Then you will understand.

Bleach, Nip. Tuck: The White Beauty Myth

2009-11-30T21:13:00.001-08:00

Hat tip Kenyatta Edition

The Obesity Epidemic

2009-11-24T05:48:00.000-08:00

So today I had a thought on the obesity epidemic as I was going to work.
Right now I am possibly in the best shape of my life and no where near my 20's. It took a while to get there but the habits I have formed that got me here provided me with an insight, which ought to be obvious, as to how I got it done. Yes it helps that I am naturally slim, but don't mistake that for the magic metabolism(tm) that some people have. I was on my way to being very out of shape and heavy before I snatched the reigns. Anyway the obesity epidemic as broken down by habit:

In the morning I have a small high fibre breakfast(Oatmeal (160 Calories), which includes nothing with high fructose corn syrup, two fruits (apple and banana @80 and 108 calories respectively) and plenty of water. A lot of people will grab a bagel with all manner of high carb toppings and coffee in the morning(A DD sesame bagel is 330 calories. add 150 for the cream cheese and another 120 for the latte for a total of 660 Calories. You don't even want to discuss how much of that are from fat. Really you don't even want to think about it). The calorie count of these things are high and the nutritional value, questionable. There are also long lines at the Dunkin Doughnut stores I pass, usually a large portion of the line are people who simply ought not to be there. They are getting bagels, doughnuts and creamed coffee. So a lot of these people have hit nearly 1,000 calories before 9AM. Particularly if they work in an office with food around. Meanwhile I may have hit 300 or so of far more nutritious food.

Then they work at a job that usually requires a lot of sitting. You don't burn all that much energy sitting. What your body does not use, it excretes or stores. At my weight, 189, it takes me 20 minutes running at 8.6 MPH to burn 440 calories. So we can safely assume that persons who are sitting down for the morning have not burned through most of what they ate in the morning though at noon, they will be "hungry".

So at noon, these individuals, who had close to if not 1,000 calories in the AM most of which were carbs, will go and eat McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, KFC or something else. The calorie counts on these meals can reach 2k calories. Say they have a large fries(570 calories), cheeseburger(310 Calories),and large coke(310 calories)and an Apple Pie (250 Calories) That's a 1.4K Calorie lunch. So by 1PM a lot of people have eaten more calories than the average human will expend in a full day. Yet their entire physical activities for the day will contain: walk to the car, drive, walk from the car, sit, walk to the car, drive, eat, sit, walk to the car, sit.

At noon, I eat a sandwich, hand made, lean cuts, low fat butter. I have some chocolate chip cookies, cause, hey.. I'm not on a diet. I also work out for an hour. So usually by 1PM I'm running a calorie deficit but maintain protein to keep my body from eating away at my muscles.

By the time I get home in the evening I am hungry. I should be. So is the average American. The difference here is that I am hungry because I'm running a calorie deficit for the day and I need to refuel. The average person is hungry in the evening because he or she is used to being fed. Many people are hungry at certain times simply because their bodies are conditioned to expect food. In any case. Dinner is my largest (calorie wise)meal plenty of carbs and protein but still balanced. A lot of people eat far more than I do of food high in fat. Mind you they haven't done much to "earn" that meal by way of physical activity but it's likely they've eaten another 1.5-2k calories at meal time. So if we look at what average people are consuming daily we can see that they are ingesting around 3500 calories each day. In exercise terms, I would have to run 2 hours and 20 minutes at 8.6 MPH to burn all that. Each. Day. Most people aren't even power walking for 20min a day much less running. I wont even get into my no snacking after 10PM rule.

So you understand why someone who was say 120 lbs at age 20 can balloon to 300+ pounds in 10 years. people are taking in upwards of 17,000 calories each work week but all they are doing is sitting down all day. They hire other people to do yard work if they have one. They are parked in front of tv and computer screens in the evenings. It is no surprise then that we have people who are not only out of shape but people are literally gorging themselves to death. If we want to look at the incidences of hypertension, heart disease, etc. we cannot escape that people are having these problems primarily due to how they eat. And the fact is that companies are all willing to profit from this. Republicans like to talk about so called "death panels" but the real death panels are in the corporate boardrooms where they think of new ways to get Americans to eat more fat calories per sitting.

It's a really sad state of affairs. And while I agree that overweight people ought not be discriminated against, I believe the whole "fat acceptance" thing is simply adding fuel to this fire by attempting to legitimize very bad eating and exercise habits and passing it off as self-esteem and anti-thin-establishment.

Engineering Fail

2009-08-05T10:51:00.000-07:00

And so as it is with many an old car I heard rattling from a rear speaker. So I go to replace the speaker when I discover the following:

Well first we have the obvious: The broken rubber around the cone that is the source of the rattle. But look closely and you'll note another problem. See it yet?
No?

There are no screws holding the speaker to the frame. Yes, BMW in their infinite wisdom thought it was a good idea to attach the speaker to the frame such that it cannot be removed without breaking the frame. Clearly no one in that department thought that was a good idea. Not. Or maybe someone in the accounting dept. thought that replacements for this part would be a nice money maker for BMW. No way no how someone didn't think that maybe a speaker would get blown and have to be replaced. Rather than go to the store and buy a replacement BMW thought that the buyer, being rich and adverse to doing things him or herself, would think nothing of shelling out what must be a few hundred bucks to pay for the part and labor (nearly $100/hour the last time I hit the dealership).

What makes this worse is that the space left by removing this thing is not to any standard for simply replacing everything. a 6X9 wont fit flush and a 5" won't fit either. Apparently some speaker companies out there provide a new frame for replacement speakers.

So this leaves me with a few options:

1) pay the dealer. Not.
2) Find a junker, hope the part is still there and not broken. Not fun.
3) Pay for a new frame and a new set of speakers. Not.
4) Leave the speaker out. What I'm doing now.
5) Use duct tape to "reconnect" the cone to the rubber. Probably what I'll do.

I can only hope that new BMW's don't have this design. My suggestion to auto manufacturers: Hire people who work on cars for a living to go over your designs. They are the ones who will be seeing your 10 year old "fault" later and that includes your own mechanics at the service area of your dealerships.

Cash for Debt

2009-08-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

Glad to know I wasn't the only one who thought there was something odd about enticing people with cash to go into debt:

For starters, who says the smartest thing for people with working cars is to buy new ones? Indeed, because personal debt is supposed to be a problem, why not look at this as bribing consumers into taking out car loans they don't need? Even with the $4,500 subsidy, not all of these customers are going to be paying cash upfront for their new cars. So they'll be swapping serviceable-but-paid-for cars for nicer cars that are owned by the banks.

Breathing is Fundamental

2009-07-08T05:33:00.001-07:00

`So today marks day 2 of the summer of bike to work. The weather is finally cooperating. This morning started off bad when about a mile into the ride, I discovered that I had not placed my water bottle on the bike. This is not a trip to go drink less and I was too far in to the ride to turn around for it. $1.82 for some Gatorade. Oh well.

So the one thing that I picked up from my rides last year was that it is a bad idea to run full tilt the entire way. It's more about maintaining a decent average speed. Earlier I would race downhill as fast as I could, or burn rubber on the flats only to be burnt out when the big hills came. Now I let gravity do the work on the downhills, then maintain a higher pace on the flats. Then when the hills come catch a good gear and for God's sake, breath!

You need to establish a good deep breathing pattern to keep a good flow of oxygen to the legs. A lot of people breath incorrectly and burn out. Either they breath too shallowly or too erratically. This wastes energy and results in early fatigue. So the lesson today is practice regulating your breathing when cycling.

Why Cablevision will cease to exist

2009-07-07T05:52:00.001-07:00

So it's July. It's time for Tour De France. If you want to see it live, and live in NJ you have two choices:

1) Versus Streampass which allows you to watch the coverage live over the internet or
2) Versus channel 408 on Cablevision.

Now I would go route #1 but I'm not keen to sit in front of my laptop to watch the stream and as I said in my last post next year will be a Mac Mini running media instead of the AppleTV so I'll be good then. So I'm stuck with option 2 which is the topic of this post.

Now anyone with IO digital service knows that you have this box that you "rent" from the cable company. This box has a card that "validates" the connection. With this box you can run up on a channel and press a button and have on demand video. Cool technology this is. Right? Right? Well not so much.

See in order to get Versus channel 408, you have to have the "family pack." I have basic cable. That is regular broadcast. Why do I pay for that? because after 9-11 reception went to hell. 20 bucks for guaranteed reception wasn't going to break me so no problem. Besides I don't watch all that much TV.

Anyway. So I have to go up to the "family pack" which runs fifty odd bucks a month just so that I can qualify to get charged another $5.95 for Versus. 60 bucks to watch one channel for all of 3 hours a day. Oh yeah, and some technician has to come out to my place and fiddle with a box to activate all this. I kid you not.

Someone please explain to me how, in the age of video on demand and two way validation boxes and TCP/IP, is it not possible to press a button, activate a channel for 24 hours or whatever (or even call customer service to turn on a channel) and be done? Seriously. CableVision: this is bad business.

So here's the addendum to the Mac Mini plan: While On vacation next week I will be purchasing a digital converter box and I will hook up my active antenna and I'll see if I can get reception. If I get reception, when the Tour De France is over, CableVision will have permanently lost a customer.

I told the customer mugger..sorry, customer service fellow that I understand that he's just doing his job, but that this was an example of why people are ditching cable and getting their content over the internet. And maybe he ought to let his higher ups know that their business model has no future.

Of course I fully expect that the cable companies will try to give the public the "Boxee" treatment in order to protect this racket they have going on. I even expect that these execs will try to get congress to pass laws requiring laptops and other portable computing devices to refuse to play video on anything but the main screen or to probe the attached screen for it's ID and if it doesn't match up with some sort of valid string the video will refuse to show. 'Cause you know, it's never that the business model is wrong. It's the customer that "doesn't understand."

Well I understand and in the near future CableVision will have had it's hand removed from my wallet. Enjoy that 60 bucks.

From Apple TV to the Old Powerbook G4

2009-07-06T07:05:00.000-07:00

And so this weekend, after discovering that Hulu once again, does not work on Boxee, leading to aborted attempts to watch new episodes of Burn Notice, I went and purchased a DVI to HDMI cable and hooked up the old Powerbook G4 to my TV.

At this point I truly regret purchasing the Apple TV. I admit this is mostly my fault since Boxee wasn't releaseware (perpetual alpha-beta) and that a Mac mini, while costing me about twice as much would have resulted in a far more capable media center.

But many people would have to admit that the draw for Boxee was full screen on your TV Hulu. It was and is the cable replacement for many of us. But alas, because the people at Hulu have decided that somehow watching Hulu content on your TV represented some major threat to their business model, Hulu on Boxee is all but a dead case. Of course I still watch Hulu on my TV and I still don't have "premium" cable content. so I'm not sure how Hulu wins here. And it's not all that inconvenient either. The biggest obstacle being that the PB does not have a remote so I have to use it's keyboard and trackpad. This could be alleviated with some bluetooth device but I won't go there. If Hulu continues to not work on Boxee I'll be ditching the Apple TV and purchasing a Mini to take it's place. I'll probably see some power savings too given how warm the ATV can get.

5 Mile Race Against Prostate Cancer Pic

2009-06-22T05:55:00.000-07:00

Jury Gives RIAA a Bailout

2009-06-19T06:27:00.001-07:00

If there is anything that shows just how bad the jury system in America has gotten we have the case of Jammie Thomas who was just ordered by a jury to pay $1.92 million for "sharing" 24 songs on Kazaa.

Yes, there is more than the simple filesharing, There is the swapped HD. But seriously. This is a case of awards being far in excess of actual damages. And yes, we understand that there's willful infringement and penalties, but $1.92 for something that's not even class action?

Look each song is worth at most 99 cents at the time she had them. She would have to share each song 750 times just to make the minimum statutory damages. That's 18,000 shares. Just to meet the minimum. At best the MediaSentry program that the RIAA used to catch Jammie found 1 instance of sharing. One. Everything after that is speculation since there is no evidence to show how long she had been sharing the file or how many people actually "stole" the material from her.

Look I think she's guilty of file sharing. No doubt. But no way no how am I voting for an award so out of proportion to the actual damages. I understand that there is a desire to use judgments to deter other file sharing. No problem. at $750 a track the award would have been $18,000. That's the cost of a Kia. The average American faced with such a sudden debt would be seriously hurt by such an award. In fact for the average black person in America, that could actually bankrupt them.

I hope that none of these jury members find themselves in this position due to some behavior like say, smoking, that they had clear control over. Then they will now how it feels to be dicked by a small committee.

Bike to Work 2009

2009-06-10T05:40:00.000-07:00

And so this morning heralded the beginning of the 2009 Summer bike to work (Once a week). Last year I stopped after 3 trips due to a combination of vacation, weather and the closure of the cafeteria. The latter point was a real deal breaker as the last day I did it, I had to scramble to find food that I could both afford and get to me. I finally found a Chinese food joint but the prospect for walking around hungry after the ride was not appealing.

To that end, this year I have a small fridge in my office. I have plenty of water as I refuse to pay $2 for a 16 oz. bottle out the vending machine and on bike days I can easily hit that machine up 3-4 times. I keep lunch meat, bread, lettuce and carrot cake in there too. The object being to not to crash round 'bout midday.

See, the ride to work is mostly uphill with some steep portions. The ride back is easier but a bit more dangerous because it is downhill and I attain higher speeds and it appears that most people do not think a bike is moving 25 MPH (I've hit 33 MPH).

Today was humid and I had on layers because it was below 65 degrees so I sweated. A lot. I'll probably leave two of the layers in the locker overnight and take them home tomorrow. This leads me to the highlight of this post. There's a lot of talk about how people ought to bike to work. I think that most of the people who say this fall in the following categories:

1) They only need to go a mile or so and can take their own sweet time and not get sweaty.
2) The only go a mile or so and have access to showers at work.
3) Can go to work sweaty and nobody cares because everyone else is sweaty.

Most people are not in the shape to go long distance such as my commute (12 miles each way). It takes me an hour to make that trip thanks to the hills. For most people it would take closer to two hours to do. Who's leaving home 2.5 hours ahead of time to get to work when they don't have to?

Most places of employment to do not have community showers and lockers so that the employees can shower and change clothes, so a lot of people, even if they wanted to, could not bike to work.

Lastly, many places simply do not have storage for bikes. I know that when I started last year, one of my biggest concerns was where to put my bike. it could not go into my office and I didn't want to just leave it out. I ended up leaving it out but viewable by other staff members. Still it's not like there are bike racks all over the place.

Anyway, my N800 seems to have a dying touchscreen so I did not run e-coach to map my speed and altitude. I'll probably end up purchasing an 810 since I've come to depend on this thing for many things. I may run it this afternoon provided I haven't killed the battery (which usually happens on days I don't bring my laptop).

'Till next time.

Stuck on Stupid with Sexting

2009-05-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

This week has been chock full of articles written by people who are supposedly intelligent discussing things with what I can only say is shockingly weak supporting arguments. The latest from Alternet (which seems to have had a good run of this type of stuff of late)Super Prude Prosecutors Charge Teenagers with Pornography and Worse For Sexy Text Messages which leads with:

Sending a nude or semi-nude picture to a friend's cell phone is apparently a crime -- if you're a teen.

Lets understand a few things:

1) Minors, by and large are legally unable to consent to various things. One of those things is to be photographed or filmed while under the age of 18.

2) Minors who are photographed or filmed engaging in sexual activities are legally victims of child pornography. There is no provision that the photographer be a certain age.

3) the Dissemination of photographs or video featuring a nude minor engaged in sexual activities is a crime. It's called distribution of child pornography.

Now it is apparently clear that parents have their heads stuck in the ground regarding these little facts. Furthermore; while many parents rail about sex-offenders living in their neighborhoods, they are completely blinded to the idea that their little boy or girl is in fact a sex-offender. And many of them are now caught in the "careful what you ask for situation." Of course little Johnny is not like THOSE men out THERE. Sure. Whatever.

Somewhere along the line the parents neglected to inform their sons and daughters about the RESPONSIBILITIES that comes with this thing called a camera-phone. Let's take for example the young man who was on Good Morning America a couple of weeks back. His ex sent him pictures of herself. They broke up, he got mad, posted the pictures to the Web. Boo-Hoo. Now he's a registered sex offender.

Back to the Alternet piece though. I'm not saying that girls and boys ought to be barred from sending certain types of photos to each other. However; it needs to be understood that the photo in question is only for the recipient. Any other distribution of the photo/video is dissemination. That needs to be clear. Paedophiles love it when these guys (and gals) post this stuff to the net and I believe this is asking for legal trouble. If a teen can give permission to have her picture taken then why can't any OTHER man be in possession of said material? Or for another example is a porn star from the 70's or 80's, I can't recall her name but she starred in a few films before it was found out that she was under-age. Being in possession of any material of her when she was underage can land you in jail even though she willingly performed, willingly signed contracts, and is now "old as dirt."

I simply cannot see how if it is allowed that a minor can view and distribute what is legally child pornography, that one can prosecute and convict an adult for the same. Oh I can see the emotional arguement, but if justice is blind, that won't fly.

Meanwhile I suggest parents have serious sit down's with their children if they are giving them phones or other devices capable of multimedia. I think schools should hold assemblies or hand out documentation about the relevant laws. A part of growing up is learning the rules.

RE:'I Was Raped' Should Horrify

2009-04-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

An agreeable article marred by faulty writing. Let's take for example this:

Clearly this was not a fun experience for Kitsch, and you feel for him. Doing badly  on an audition sucks. But it does not suck as much as sexual assault, something that happens every two minutes in America.

My dictionary defines rape as "The unlawful compelling of a woman through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse," is experiencing a dangerous shift in meaning.*

My first and major objection here is the apparent equivocation of "rape" with "sexual assault." Yes all rapes are sexual assaults. No, all sexual assaults are not rapes. Yet this, and a great deal of other writings on the subject continuously (and I believe purposely) exchange the two. Clearly it is easier to, and more "shocking" to make a statement about something that happens every two minutes (a statistical argument) rather than one that may happen, statistically speaking, once every five minutes (and that's a quick hack up based on 1996 numbers 71/100,000 females and using the current US population of 300,000,000 divided in half. the rates of rape have dropped since then).

Also given that a great deal of rapes occur between people who know each other, it's not likely that on average a woman outside of a war zone is going to be grabbed up by a man.

So that 'quibble" aside, we get to the next problem. The use of rape by people to describe bad situations they've found themselves in. While I can see the point of the author that the random use of the phrase "raped" to describe a non-sexual intercourse situation, I think it also is a recognition of rape as a power play by the rapist imposed upon his or her victim. If one says one feels "raped" by a certain situation, one is saying that one felt powerless and victimized by the other party. Usually when I've heard the term used, it is in connection with the taking of something valuable or a great defeat. So in a sense those wishing to get the point across that rape is about power have succeeded.

I think that if the author is serious about keeping rape "serious", then I think it should start with not exchanging the general category of sexual assault (which can be an unwanted pinch on the ass), with rape.

Andre 3000 speeding in GA

2009-03-31T12:52:00.000-07:00

Apparently he was caught doing 109 in a 65 in his Porsche. I ask: Is that all? I had a rented Mercury Sable which I hit the rev or speed limiter on between Tuskegee and Montgomery. On the NJ Turnpike I hit 116 MPH in a rented Taurus and the best Andre could do in his Porsche was 103? Wimpy, Wimpy, Wimpy.

And dude if you're going to push that kind of speed you need to have a built in omni-directional radar/lidar detector/jammer. Seriously.

The dumb part though is the law that Ga wants to pass a law adding an additional $200 fine for speeds over 85 MPH. 85? Clearly these idiots haven't been to Michigan, where going 85 will get you passed by grannies.

Anyway the problem is not the extremely rare 1 ton crowd out there. It's the damn cell phone users. I mean I've seen fools driving through parking lots while texting! But in a country full of nervous nellies 85 MPH speed surcharges scores political points. Asking people to pay attention to their driving: not so much.

LG Shine and Nokia N800

2009-03-19T15:41:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for a phone to use as to tether your N800 to the net sans wifi, the LG shine works out of the box with the standard N800 Diablo OS. Inexpensive with a contract (free at some places with contract).

Technorati Tags: N800

New iPod Shuffle

2009-03-11T12:45:00.000-07:00

So Apple has released a new Shuffle.

Clearly the person who made the decision to put the controls on the earbuds doesn't run or has had earbuds fall out repeated during runs. They obviously don't think you could possibly prefer to use other headphones. I was in the market to replace my now dead shuffle. I guess not.

RE:New Mac Mini Misses the Mark for Small Business

2009-03-04T12:42:00.000-08:00

PC World Writes:

Now, back to what I did not realize: There is no way to add a second network adapter to a Mac mini. Apple does not offer one, nor do any third parties. I called tech support to inquire about my options and decided that running Leopard Server with only one network card was not a very good idea. I abandoned the project.

Five minutes of Google:

Mac USB-Ethernet Adapters:

I understand Apple's USB-to-Ethernet adaptor should work on other Macs running Leopard 10.5.2 or later (Daniel Sumorok has verified this)

Will PC World pay me?

Good For Coach Calhoun

2009-02-25T20:22:00.000-08:00

I saw that the Governor of Conn. claimed that Coach Calhoun was an "embarrassment" for the way he answered a question about his salary. I say the Governor ought to have kept her mouth shut. Clearly Calhoun did not appreciate being questioned about his salary. It was clear from when the question was started; "Not a dime back."

Sometimes reporters ask some assinine questions and sometimes they try to act like they are owed an explanation for anything that pops into their heads. This particular disease is in evidence with Senator Burris, where certain news organizations have, in my opinion, willfully distorted his testimony in order to push a particular agenda.

In Calhoun's case it was that he is the highest state employee at $1.6 million/year. The reporter was attempting to make the point that with the state in a budget crunch (which is most of the time), there may be something amiss for the Coach to be making so much. Calhoun clearly didn't feel so and made the excellent point that the team he coaches brings in $12 million a year. He gave a nice hint to this issue when he said "what was the take?" meaning how much money did the game they just played bring in to the University of Connecticut. See unlike the Wall Street people. He does his job and brings a direct monetary benefit to the state. In light of that the question was rude and I'm glad Calhoun put the reporter in his place.

Also as Calhoun pointed out, the press meeting was about the game, not Calhoun's salary. As he pointed out the reporter would have been free to see Calhoun after the report or at any other time since Calhoun can be found on campus for his position on his salary rather than try to call him out.

Well So Much for That

2009-02-21T14:04:00.001-08:00

http://lifehacker.com/5157615/how-to-reinstall-a-working-hulu-in-boxee

No Content Found

2009-02-20T17:29:00.001-08:00

Tonight, when I was set to sit down and watch my queued up episodes of Burn Notice and Damages, I flicked on Hulu from my Apple TV running Boxee and saw "No Content Found." Yes Hulu had officially offed Boxee.

reading the posts on the Boxee blog and Hulu's blog it is pretty clear that this cruel interruption to my New Year's resolution was the work of some old white males in expensive suits in mid-town Manhattan who like their ancestors of yore believe that what's yours is there's to profit off of. Presumably it is the "content owners" who have determined that somehow viewing Hulu flash video anywhere except through one of the following:

Safari
Firefox
Internet Explorer

is somehow a breech of some contract. We'll get to that in a minute. You'll note that I didn't say computer, rather I said browser because clearly since a user can connect their computing device (laptop, tower, tablet) to any external video monitor the device is capable of connecting to, the TV is not the PRIMARY issue. Well maybe it is. But trust me, the old white men in mid-town Manhattan, most of whom probably have the internet knowledge equal of John McCain, have been told that the internet can only be seen on a web browser on a computer and of course computers can't be connected to a TV. I mean after all WHO is still using WebTV? SO while the white men in mid-town Manhattan may be clueless, I believe that the real culprit lies elsewhere: The Cable companies.

See I'm old enough to remember life before cable. A time when Cable was for HBO and Showtime and little else. I saw how Cable went from something extra for the TV to something necessary for TV. Most of the compelling TV has moved to cable. OTA (over the air) broadcast is basically, medical shows, CSI shows and "unscripted" reality shows. That's it really. Well if you don't include the weekend sports. So OTA is really only useful for local news casts. And since 9-11, reception of traditional air broadcasts have sucked by me. So most people pay at least $12 for basic cable (AKA clear OTA programming). Now all those other stations, TBS, SPIKE, etc. are revenue streams for the likes of Time Warner, Cablevision, etc. as well as the "content providers." Cable companies and their local subsidiaries also have a monopoly on break in advertising. They sell advertising on various channels to local businesses. This is a brisk business that has branched out into movie theatres as well. Hulu breaks this business model completely since a great deal of people who use Boxee have cut the cable/satelite and use Boxee as their content viewer of choice. So the really big losers here: Cable companies. Not only are they losing customers who no longer pay the 70+ bucks/month for "premium content." They also lose the advertising bucks because they can't claim to reach x-amount of people per station.

The "content providers" still make money because all Hulu programming has advertising so they can still make a profit and that profit would increase as more people moved from Cable to Boxee.

Now if you don't want to believe me about the cable angle, then take a look at the Boxee blog where they discuss the cable company execs that came to "visit" Boxee at CES. If you think those execs left the Boxee booth saying: Yo, good shit they have there. I suggest laying off the herb. I will lay out cold cash that these execs were on the cell phones with lawyers and "content execs" as soon as they left the Boxee booth. I surmise the conversations went something like: WTF!!! WTF!!!These people are putting your shit on OUR TV's!!!! We have CONTRACTS!!! WTF!!!!(Think Christian Bale interrupted during a Terminator shoot). I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some threat to not broadcast any "content provider" who continued to allow Boxee access to their content. Think not? How many times have you seen the scrolling threat to cut off some set of channels or another over some dispute with the tag: please call such and such company....?

Yes folks, my thinking is that the "content providers" were more than happy to get Boxee users streaming Hulu content to their shiny flat panel TV's. I believe that the cable companies saw the end to their business. Of course had they NOT decided to stick the public for way overpriced "content delivery." They wouldn't have had this problem, but anyone who did the math I did, realized that streaming video over their internet connection which is a must have today, along with a AppleTV costs less per year even in the first year, than a cable subscription.

Of course this also means that Apple stands to lose "big." I believe that Apple TV sales went up because of Boxee. Not iTunes, not movies available from iTunes, but Boxee. iTunes and Apple TV are not the most economical choice. You can get DVD's from Red Box at Shop and Stop for a buck vs 3.99 for the cheapest rental from iTunes. I'm not paying a buck a show from iTunes. Biggest rip-off ever. Seriously. One buck every time I choose to watch a show? I have to find storage for it and if I lose it or whatever I have to pay again? No thanks. Which brings me to my conclusion.

I've never pirated music or movies. I thought it was bad form when Star Wars Ep III made it out on DVD before it hit the big screen. I like for artists to get paid and for studios to make money off their investments. But this blatant money grab? Not having it. I'm still not going to pay for cable. I'm not going to incriminate myself here but needless to say there is a website that starts with a "P" and ends with a "Y.org" and the "Content providers" should be happy since people have to use a browser to use the site. lol.

Fake Holocaust Story

2009-02-18T05:56:00.000-08:00

The author says today on GMA:

It was a lie. But it was true in my imagination so it was true.

???

Quantum of Stupid

2009-02-15T15:30:00.001-08:00

I know that it's a game but seriously, if I shoot a guy in the head with a shotgun he ought to go down immediately. The suspension of disbelief is going a bit far when a character wearing a t-shirt can take a full clip to the torso and still run around like a track star.

Daring Fireball

2009-02-10T13:00:00.001-08:00

Given Jon Gruber's numerous missives on Barry Bonds now confirmed steroid use, I'm waiting for him to post up on A-Rod. 36 hours and counting.

Free Phelps!

2009-02-05T19:40:00.001-08:00

I don't do drugs. I don't do drugs of any kind. I don't do illegal substances. I don't do the legal ones either. The only reason I have any kind of drug would be because it was either prescribed, is an anti-inflamatory (I run) or anti-histamine.

I grew up in the "just say no" era. Where Nancy Reagan had her little news conferences and we were told to "just say no." Simple for me as I never said yes. I was convinced by people who I'm, sure had my best interest at heart that drug use was a one way street to unemployment, homelessness and all other manner of ill things. Indeed I was convinced that if one did drugs you just couldn't BE anything. Good reason to abstain.

Well somewhere between then and now an interesting thing happened. Public figures of all kinds started admitting to drug use. Weed in particular. Of course I had grown up with the images of Marion Barry of DC fame caught on tape getting high so such admissions were kind of unsettling to me. Eventually we got to the point where NY Mayor Bloomberg admitted to taking a toke and claimed to have enjoyed it. And this bloke got re-elected to office? Huh? So apparently then, one can inbibe and still be a decent human being, be responsible, run a billion dollar company and NYC. Wow.

Of course, the NYPD had made news stopping young black men on the street with no probable cause and either givng them summonses or outright arresting them for having small amounts of herb on their person. Hypocritical to say the least. It's not like people who drink alcohol are accosted while walking down the street. I mean drunk drivers kill people all the time and yet alcohol is freely available to anyone of legal age. Talk about double standards.

But it doesn't stop there. In Novemeber the US elected a president who admitted to not only taking a toke but of using the far more potent (and of no medical value) cocaine. Think about that for a minute. The commander in Chief is a known ex coke head, a former weed user and still has a cigarette habit. How are the people of the US and corporations, who undoubtedly gave millions in donations to the Obama camp, going to turn around and say that Phelps " is not consistent with the image of Kellogg,”

I suppose that since there aren't tapes of Obama or Bloomberg taking hits they can be passed on but it' OK to shit on Phelps because someone at a party decided it was a good idea to give a picture to a tabloid for some undisclosed sum (And they had better had made a profit since they have cost Phelps a nice coin).

To top things off "USA Swimming publicly reprimanded Phelps, temporarily withdrawing its financial support from him and barring him from competition for the months."

Why? Did his use of Sensimela give him an unfair advantage in the pool? No? Right. Oh perhaps there's some kind of "morality clause" in his contract (and I assume he has one). Oh it's for the kids! The poor kids who will soon enough learn that their government leaders have been taking hits and that the president of the US had a coke habit. When I was a kid I assumed that if you did such things you couldn't become mayor of a large city or president of the US. Now I'm grown and realize that such things not true. Same for the kids. Now is a nice time to have a conversation with the kids about that thing called privacy. How you ought not go selling pictures of your "friends" to newspapers and trashy websites. How some people choose to imbibe but in your house it is/ or is not allowed for whatever reasons.

Michael Phelps ought to have called out Bloomberg and the POTUS and discussed how weed use, like alcohol use is about moderation. Anyone can abuse either substance and make a wreck of themselves and their lives and unlike tobacco it won't send you to the hospital for treatment but rather you're likely to be sent home with the herb FOR treatment.

My message to Phelps: Grow a pair. Tell Kellogg to kiss your *ss and for future contracts make sure that the so called "morality clause" is stricken. Don't let these money grubbers who stand to make far more off you than they will pay you, dictate what you can and cannot do on your personal time cause they sure as hell won't let you dictate to them how to run their business.

Like That Creature in the Log

2009-02-05T18:49:00.000-08:00

So I was thinking on the recent spate of trojans affecting Macs and it got me to thinking about what I said to a client of mine:

Using limewire is kind og like that scene in the Flash Gordon movie where Flash has to put his hand into a log where this apparently poisonous creature lives.

Sure a lot of people do it and don't get bitten but also be sure that a whole lotta people got bit

Barry "Junk" Bonds

2009-02-05T06:20:00.000-08:00

In previous postings on the matter of Barry Bonds, I have defended the man based on one thing. His alleged clear tests for steroids. Regardless of what people said, my position was that if he hasn't tested positive then there's no case. It's kind of like a rape kit. You can call me a rapist all day, but if you can't put me at (or in) the scene, then it's a wrap.

Last night we find that Barry Bonds did in fact fail at least two steroid tests. Still though, Bonds made an ass of himself when he said he used some cream that he didn' know the contents of. I train to run, nothing goes on or in my body without me knowing what is in it. So it was pretty disingeneous to claim that he had no clue as to what he was putting on or in his body. He's a grown man. It's only kids who you get to tell "trust me it'll make you better" to.

Junk Bonds. And the Aaron's record ought to be re-instated.

GarageBand Frequency (Maybe iTunes)?

2009-01-26T06:33:00.000-08:00

I've been working on some music in GarageBand and I've been listening to the music in iTunes with a Graphic EQ and noticed that the highest frequencies are all but missing. I'm one of those people who can hear when a tube tv is whining, even though I am getting to the stage in life where I won't be able to do that for too much longer.

I believe it to be Garageband because the missing frequencies are very obvious compared to a file downloaded from iTunes. Anyone else seen this issue?

Apple TV Sales Triple Last Year...

2009-01-21T19:13:00.001-08:00

Yes, and I'm one of them. ATV with Boxee, as noted has replaced cable and the rental store for me (maybe even regular Best Buy DVD sales). No Boxee, no sale though. Apple should either buy Boxee or make sure any update to the ATV software works with Boxee. For real though.

Disappearing shows

2009-01-20T07:46:00.001-08:00

Fully a week into basic cable and Boxee I feel compelled to discuss the problem of the disappearing shows and movies. Yesterday it was reported on how Hulu on demand from FX, pulled all past episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia which cause a great deal of grief to Hulu users. The consensus seems to be that FX wants people to purchase the DVD set. Not that I watch Sunny but really this "buy the DVD" thing is in my opinion silly. When I saw the price for the box set of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. I passed on it. I have the choice of watching re-runs on cable and sit through commercials or buy a box set and perhaps be motivated to pop in a DVD. Or I could watch it via boxee (if it were available) commercials and all, at my convenience, without having to store a DVD, case and all or a ripped version on my NAS (taking up valuable storage capacity). Of course since I can't get DS9 on Boxee or any other legal means on the net, I simply don't watch. Lost money for Viacom. Speaking of DS9, Where is Star Trek on Hulu or Joost or Boxee? Seriously people. Yes the classic ones are there but I want my DS9, TNG and Voyager please.

Now previously I had found Spenser for Hire on AOL tv. Then not two days after finding it did it disappear. Now I've found it on Joost via boxee, though it's missing many episodes (but has no adverts).

In the end, these companies need to realize that internet delivery "on demand" is the future. With products like Boxee, I don't care whether they are in a Hulu or a channel branded site. So long as I can access it through the TV set I'm satisfied.

Sun VirtualBox

2009-01-13T06:02:00.000-08:00

A little request to Sun Microsystems about Virtualbox: It would be nice to have the windows task bar disappear in "seamless mode" That it floats there above the OS X dock is kind of ridiculous.

NJ Drivers

2009-01-10T12:06:00.001-08:00

I always thought there was something not quite right with NJ drivers. The NY Times has now confirmed my suspicions

You know, the latest thing that I have observed here in NJ are people who are so impatient to make left turns that they will actually go around you to make a left turn. This is especially true of SUV drivers. Never mind that people usually do not look to see if the person BEHIND them is making the left turn at the same time they are so that's a huge accident waiting to happen. There ought to be huge huge fines for that kind of behavior.

“There was a lot of traffic, and I couldn’t figure out when it was my turn to go into the other lane,” she said. “I guess I wasn’t doing it quickly enough for my husband because he started yelling: ‘Merge! Merge!’ I just pulled the car over, got out, and handed him the keys..."

Turn? It's your turn to get into the other lane when there's enough space between oncoming vehicles for your car to fit and accelerate to the speed of traffic.Please someone revoke this woman's license. Seriously nervous drivers are the worst. They hit their brakes for no other reason than that they are scared.

“I had to drive on Route 46 to take my New Jersey driver’s test,” said Ms. McClenahan, who is in her early 40s. “That was really traumatic — all the cars were whizzing by. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. After that experience I said, I am never going on Route 46 again.”

And please, do stay off 46. Personally I think she ought to have failed the test. Perhaps it's just me, but while I was anxious about my driving test, It was not traumatic. And I took my test in Michigan. I did most of my practicing on highways. Personally I think there ought to be a confidence score. If a person is really shook, they ought not be licensed.

Oh and this..this is classic:

“I’m afraid of simultaneously keeping my eye on the speedometer, merging, and looking at signs to see where I’m going,” said Ms. Schneider, 40, who got her license at age 34 after she and her family moved to the suburbs...She said she has driven on highways about five times so far, mostly using a GPS device in her minivan, but doesn’t plan to hit Route 3 again anytime soon."

Hey stupid. When merging you don't look at your speed. there's no need. You can't be merging AND looking for signs at the same time. Looking for signs means you're trying to get off. If you're trying to get off, then you ought to be in the rightmost lane ANYWAY (for right sided exits). And although she's confused by the array of things she has to look at she's got the GPS in the car. I'l lay odds that this one also has a phone. I will put money on it.

Then there's this:

Ms. Kelly has also sworn off highways for good. “I’m not going to be a highway driver; that won’t be happening,” she said. “I have no clue how people merge at high speeds. I can’t even imagine it. I mean, are you people nuts?”

No seriously, did she really ask HOW people merge at high speeds? FIrst and foremost there's this thing called relativity. If Were both moving in the same direction and I'm going 80 and you're going 70, I'm moving faster than you are by 10 MPH. really It's not that hard to merge with a 10 MPH gap. What you do is press that thing called an accelerator as much as you need to to get up to speed. If you have to press hard enough you'll trip what is called the "kick down" response in the computer and the car will down shift for more acceleration. You should try it. It's what you're expected to do. If my 20 year old car can make it, your relatively new one can

I do have to agree with one thing on though, there are plenty of people in NJ who seem not to understand that when there is a merge up ahead and there are cars looking to enter, one ought to change lanes to give them space if you can. It would be even more polite to give a flash to let them know that you see them and are letting them in.

New Year, New Modes of Living

2009-01-09T19:49:00.001-08:00

And so this year I have a few resolutions:

1) To be more fit. Anyone who knows me knows I'm already way fit. Not built. Fit. I'm trying to get stronger and faster. Not the easiest thing for someone running up to 40 years old but a goal I can reach.

2) Stop wasting money. Yes thought I am fortunate at this time to be employed (and seeing the recent unemployment stats that is saying a lot). But this year I'm doing my best to leverage frugality. So first thing is that my 88 325i died. So I had the opportunity to replace it with a '97 318i which gets about 50% more useful gas mileage as my other vehicle, a '97 Z3 2.8. When you're pumping premium, that matters. Not that when gas prices hit $5 I was sweating all that much as I live within my means (and I had been biking to work), but why spend the money if you don't have to?

So I'm looking at a minimum of a 20% reduction in my gas usage this year, without changing my habits. That's about $300 bucks for the year. I'm not keeping full tabs on my gas usage because it comes out of my weekly allowance.

Next is the reduction in land line phone service. Why do I still have a land line? DSL and legacy. I've had my phone number for ever. Don't want to give it up. Sue me. Anyway. I have a Gizmo number which I can get mad minutes for 20 bucks. I don't make a lot of phone calls. So the biggest money waster is actually my cell phone, but I prefer to be available and I'm not clear that a pay-go plan will work for me for when I do use the phone heavily. In any event, between my Gizmo number and my Google Grand Central number, Vocito on the Mac and Dial Central on the Nokia Internet Tablet, I don't pay for phone calls. Nothing. Nada. Not even long distance. If I was convinced that both Gizmo and Grand Central will remain free I would probably drop the land line altogether. But as of now I'm saving $20/month. It's possible that I can go lower but these phone companies have so many fees and such. I may end up going with Vonage or something when it begins to annoy me enough. But as of now I'm looking at $240 for the year in savings.

Next up: Apple TV and Boxee. I've reduced my CableVision to basic cable. I just bought an Apple TV and installed Boxee on it. I get CNN news. I get all those reruns that Spike, FX, TNT, and everyone one else broadcasts and then some. Of course we have torrents but you know, that wouldn't be legal. I realized I was ready for this when I was willing to sit at my computer and watch Spenser for Hire at my laptop. I suppose my Spenser watching caught the attention of AOL because not 48 hours after I discovered their monster stash of Spenser, then they took it down. Next time, I use my browser plugin and rip that stuff. Note to media companies: suddenly making stuff unavailable is a bad idea. Not that I'm threatening to do anything illegal. So my Cable bill was just cut by $30/month. In July I'll have to pony up for Versus so I can watch Le Tour (unless it ends up online somewhere). But for now that's $360 for the year. The Apple TV of course will eat into that particular saving but I still come out ahead by $140 if you include it's cost. However since I had an Airport Express that died on New Years, I'm not going to include it in the cost because I would have paid for a replacement anyway.

So what we have is a possible $900 savings for the year if it all works out as planned ($75/month). Not too shabby for cutting expenses without really impacting my life. If I wasn't attached to my land line phone number I'd probably be able to reach a grand. Well lets see how this goes.

Chrysler, Ford Exercise Nuclear Option

2008-12-17T17:14:00.001-08:00

Having not secured any bail out money from congress just yet, Chrysler and Ford have exercised the nuclear option of shutting down production in ALL plants for at least a month (Or perhaps until the government coughs up some dough). Although the manufacturers normally shut down production for 2 weeks around this time, the extra time is not normal.

Expect the stock market to dive off a cliff tomorrow or the day after.

update:

It would seem that many automakers around the globe are doing the same thing. Auto sales seem to be cratering world wide. So has the Mortgage Ponzi scheme along with the Spike in gas prices over the summer killing the auto industry? I know for myself I have went a purchased a 4 cylinder high MPG (and mileage) car for "daily" driving and letting the higher consumption (and far more fun to drive) vehicle to sit more often. Gas prices might be low now but I'm not getting caught out there when they spike again. It's bad enough I have to use premium fuel.

It's Not Walmart's Fault

2008-12-04T05:30:00.000-08:00

I'm not one to defend Wal-Mart. I don't even shop at the store because of issues I have with their employment practices. However I must object strenuously to the multi-million dollar lawsuit that has brought against them by the family of Jdimytai Damour.

The responsible parties are those that trampled Jdimytai to death and they are the only responsible parties. Could Walmart foresee that it would be possible for people to act like they have absolutely no self-respect, self-restraint and total lack of home training? Sure. Is it Wal-Mart's responsibility for that? No? Could Wal-Mart foresee that some idiot in the parking lot of it's property could break into peoples vehicles? Sure? Is Wal-Mart responsible for the break in? No. Could Wal-Mart foresee that one could be run over in their parking lot when it is packed with customers going to a fro? Of course. Would Wal-Mart be liable if a person got run over in the parking lot? Absolutely not. Corporate entities as legal persons (an unfortunate circumstance) are no more responsible for the behavior of other people than is the citizen standing in line who was pushed along by the unruly crowd.

But Walmart is an easy, deep pocketed, fearful of bad publicity company. Little, broke, looking to save 5 bucks off a computer, ordinary citizens don't have much to offer. Hopefully the police will be able to ID the people who stepped on Jdimytai and will have them arrested. The best crowd control is the threat of prosecution. I can guarantee you that if a high profile example is made of those who stepped on Jdimytai, who I understand was trying to protect a pregnant shopper, the next Black Friday at Wal-Mart will not have anything like what transpired.

The Case for a 12" MacBook

2008-10-23T08:45:00.001-07:00

This photo clearly shows why those of us who have the 12 incher want another one.

No it doesn't mean 'cheap' Mr. Jobs. It means portable power in a form that is most portable.

Why There's No Firewire on the new MacBooks.

2008-10-16T06:02:00.000-07:00

And so my dreams of a new black MacBook with firewire have been dashed along with my hope of a return of the 12" laptop from Apple. I'll get on the latter issue at another post. There's much to be bothered about the lack of Firewire on the MacBook but thinking about Apple and how Apple has moved in the past, the removal of FW from the consumer line of the laptop is completely understandable, if annoying.

Think about what has happened in the consumer camera space in the past couple of years. We have DV cameras that record directly to hard disk. We have flip cameras that record directly to SD disk (I have an older one with horrible compression). And of course we have the regular still cameras that save internally and externally to a number of removable media. What do all of these cameras have in common? They can transfer files directly over USB/USB2 to any computer or can have their removable media inserted into a card reader that also connects over USB.

Therefore the need for FW in the consumer space going forward does not need Firewire. it only needs USB. I have no doubt that the monstrosity that is iMovie 7.1 will be made to recognize these kinds of cameras and media (assuming it does not currently do so). I have long ago created a DVD through iMovie with my flip camera and files imported from an SD card. it's not hard.

What Apple has done is said that it won't allow it's more pro customers get away with buying the low end Mac to do work with "higher end" cameras. At least that's my read. If you want to hook up a Camera that *requires* firewire to move data then you probably have the resources to ante up for a MacBook Pro and Apple will be glad to take your money. of course that annoys people like myself who wanted a smaller machine but still wanted the pro features a-la the long dead 12" PB which had everything except the expansion slot.

Now some people are moaning about the supposed loss of FW target disk mode. If you have a techie who complains about this, please reconsider paying for his or her service. All intel Macs can be accessed in target disk mode via USB. No it's not firewire, but it does the same thing. they can still diagnose the HD with utilities over USB.

The Bad Thing About Cell Phones

2008-10-13T12:31:00.000-07:00

And so I had a very busy weekend. Such a busy weekend in fact that I didn't place any phone calls or txt messages for 2 days. Well 1, but let me finish. In my apartment I have what we shall refer to as 'spotty" service. That is I get reception in one spot and not another. Oddly, on Friday night I happened to notice two odd things:

1) The battery had gone down to 1/2 charge.
2) I had 4 bars where I previously have none.

So I thought: "great my battery is going." and "Great! ATT must have thrown up a tower somewhere!"

Sadly neither was the case. After spending all day Saturday working on my Car and a DVD for a client, I settled down to enjoy the evening. I happened to look at my phone and lo and behold the battery was again at 1/2 charge. Now I'm thinking that I hadn't used the phone all day except to look at the time. But I also had 4 bars.I suppose I was so enraptured by having service in my apt. that it didn't dawn on me that something was not quite right.

So next day I head out to visit moms. While we're at Home Depot I decide to let somebody know I was alive ( I have a habit of not answering phones and people have habits of not leaving messages, bad combo). Oddly the message took forever to send and I never quite saw that it went since the screen blanked out to save the battery. But I had 4 bars!

Then I got annoyed that the lucky person to have received a txt message from me didn't even respond. I mean, a text message from me is a special thing y'all. Still I'm distracted by this 4 bars everywhere thing.

It didn't even occur to me that I had not received a single phone call in the past 36 hours which is odd. So anyway, this afternoon I'm at work, sitting in a room that is a known cellular dead zone. I check the phone. 4 bars. No way. so some 72 hours later I realize that the cell phone had in fact been partially locked up. It would show the time, play music and all that jazz, but it would not be receiving or sending calls or txt. Reboot.

As I exit the dead zone, the phone lets me know I have a message. From 2 days ago. just imagining if I only had the cell phone as a means of contact. That would have sucked. Worst is to have no clue that your phone is locked up.

WAMU falls

2008-09-26T06:57:00.001-07:00

So I suppose that the WAMU guy was wrong after all.

The DOW

2008-09-15T06:24:00.001-07:00

Lets see how low the Dow goes today shall we.

MaemoMapper Update for Nokia IT

2008-08-12T06:20:00.000-07:00

MaemoMapper, by far my favorite app on my N800 has just gotten an update that overlays Google Traffic data on maps. Often when I have to go somewhere I check the google traffic to see if the GWB is backed up or the GCP. But that required either starting up the browser or using the Garnet VM for the google maps app in the Palm emulation. Now I can just fire up my mapper program and be done with it.

Now if I could get a bluetooth DUN profile having phone to tether too.

Follow the discussion here:

http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22704&goto=newpost

Older Athletes kicking tail

2008-08-11T06:01:00.000-07:00

Count me in the contingent of "older" people who are not allowing our relatively advanced age slow us down. We have the 40 year old mother, Dara Torres who beats most swimmers half her age. We have yesterday that victory of the 32 year old swimmer, Lezak, who overcame a deficit to win gold in the 400 relay. What's the secret?

I'll tell you. We eat well. We understand that technique will help us overcome what we may be losing in sheer muscle power. We are more mature and therefore we can keep those emotions in check so that we don't break form. It's about understanding and working with your limits.

Scared by Cyclists

2008-08-10T17:11:00.001-07:00

So the NY Times has an article on the rise of Cycling and the mental problems that have arisen. Here's one paragraph that defies logic:

“Mention the noon riders to anyone in town and you’ll see the blood pressure go up,” said Susan George, Woodside’s town manager. One day, she said, she rounded a bend and came upon them: “I slammed on the brakes and they swarmed around me, screaming and yelling obscenities. My heart was pounding. It was very scary.”

Scared by cyclists? Is she serious? Exactly WHAT threat did the bikes pose to her? No, seriously. She and her 2 ton vehicle was the threat.

Edwards

2008-08-08T16:17:00.001-07:00

I'm just going to say that Edwards is lying about the baby not being his. Seriously folks, why was he at a hotel at 2 AM?

Farewell iTunes Store

2008-07-28T07:34:00.001-07:00

And so after a few years I bid the iTunes store farewell. Well not really. I've just backburnered iTunes for the Amazon Store or anywhere else that I can get non-DRM'd music. Yes I'm late to the rabid anti-DRM party, but hey at least I'm here. When the iTunes store came out I was happy I could get high quality music for a decent price without theft or the possibility of downloading trojans. I didn't mind the DRM because at the time I was a full Apple home. iPod and Mac. I didn't feel that I needed to have other formats and I could still play my mp3's.

The one huge gripe I had with the iPod was that it would not cross-fade music. Apparently most people could care less about that feature but I like my music mixed. No gaps. Not stop and start. I want continuous music and when two songs meld together, all is good with the universe. I didn't care about video, super capacity, color screens or phones. I simply wanted to have my portable music player mix my music.

iTunes mixed music so when I was at the computer that particular need was met. Then I got a Nokia N800. It has a music player. Well actually quite a few music players. I installed XMMS on it. It's a pretty powerful music player which reminded me of MacAmp/WinAmp. I figured I could use it for music, since I take it everywhere my iPod goes. Well the problem was that the AAC files from the iTunes store don't play on that program. Not a big problem. I still have my iPod(s) and besides XMMS is somewhat of a CPU hog, especially if the EQ and sound processors were being used. I prefer for my N800 to have juice for GPS or other tasks.

Then in June I was planning a trip to Philly for the Odunde Festival. I wanted a mix. So I went online and settled on FutureDecks lite. It's a decent program that unfortunately does not allow you to pick a secondary output for monitoring so cueing up music can be hard. Anyway, this program, and others, will allow you to record your mixes live. Perfect. So I load up the music library and notice that It's a bit light. It was then that I discovered that I cannot use DRM'd iTunes files.

Say what?

SO let me get this straight. I paid for the music. I'm going to mix it so I can listen to it the way I want to but some record company has decided that I can't. because of this little problem I had to plan out what music I wanted to include in the mix, make a playlist, burn the playlist to CD(s). and then copy back the huge AIFF files to the system. Oh and since the names of the tracks on the second CD turned into "Track 1", etc. I had to rename them. Oh that was fun. So about 3 hours after setting about to make the mix, I was starting the mix. Subsequent mixes didn't take as long to set up but I had been soured on the experience.

The last straw for me though was when I downloaded "Must Be the Music" a Hip Hop classic. At some point in the download iTunes got stuck processing the file. I'm not sure what that entails but I had to force quit iTunes which resulted in a file that refused to play in iTunes. I managed to get it to play in QT and captured the audio with Audio Hijack. I had had enough. The funniest thing about this is that the news of the Yahoo music store going away came out soon after this debacle. It was a sick joke that people who had purchased music from Yahoo were being told that they wouldn't be able to listen to said music on any new systems they might get, cause you know, computers never die. They were told to burn the music to CD, which clearly causes a loss in quality.

So enough of the DRM. Enough of the artificial lock in. Enough of the "you purchased the right to listen to music, the file doesn't belong to you" attitude that these businesses have managed to foist on society. If I paid for it, and it wasn't a rental, then it's mine. So it's off to the Amazon store from now on for my music purchases. Oh, I'll look it up in iTunes. I'll play it in iTunes, but Apple won't be getting my money. And it's sad, because the record company that allegedly forced Apples hand on the DRM front will still get my cash.

Technorati Tags: DRM, N800, iTunes

Nanostray 2

2008-07-12T17:59:00.001-07:00

Got Nanostray 2 for my DS. Haven't had this much fun since Raiden II !! I hate when I get time killing games.

Looking at the rankings, I suck.

Your Personal e-mail is Personal

2008-06-30T11:28:00.001-07:00

I work in IT. I tell people all the time that IT can, though it does not currently, intercept your "private" communications. A private corporation is not the government and therefore you have no expectation of privacy other than that which the company gives you. Personally, I keep a laptop and an N800 for most of my personal correspondence. The reason for this is perfectly illustrated in the following case:

According to the suit, Sidell has concluded that, when hustled out of his office after his termination, he left his work computer logged into his personal Yahoo account. The login credentials are typically retained for two weeks, and Siedel claims that, during that time, his former employees accessed his account repeatedly. Their access netted them over 10,000 e-mails archived in the account, as well as providing privileged communications between Sidell and his attorneys regarding his plans to pursue legal action regarding his firing. Those actions prompted the suit, which was filed in May and alleges various violations of the Stored Communications Act, Electronic Communications Protection Act, and a Connecticut wiretapping law.

According to a story about the case in The New York Times, however, the situation may not be that straightforward. His former employers allege that Sidell did not log into his Yahoo account from his own computer, but instead accessed it from a different employee's machine, and left the window open when he departed. An examination of that window suggested that Sidell used this access to send confidential company documents to his Yahoo account, justifying the company's full investigation of the account's contents.

The company will lose this case. Why? Lets look at some interesting developments in IT law. We have a case of a man who would daily, sit outside a store and use the free wifi. He was charged with WIFI theft because he did not have permission to use the WIFI. Permission would have been gained by actually purchasing something in the store or getting the store owner's permission. Lesson: If the account/network is not yours you are not entitled to use it.

Siedell's employer had every right to look on the computer for any stored files on their property (computer). Any mail left on the employers servers or in the disk cache, is also fair game. What the employer, or any other legal person cannot do is misrepresent themselves as the rightful owner of an account.

For example we have the HP fiasco where they were seeking a leak and misrepresented themselves to a phone company in order to gain access to phone records. Illegal.

Another nice example is if I were to get access to your debit card and pin. That does not mean that I can go to the bank and access your account unless you gave me permission to do so. If I have not then you have committed a crime.

Therefore I fully expect Siedel's employers to be on the losing end of this lawsuit, just as the telcos who went along with Bush and co. ought to have been.

The fact that the account was accessed on another employees machine means nothing at all. The allegation that Siedel was forwarding company info to his personal account is one that a warrant is needed to discover. Or the company should have checked the logs of their network security appliances for transfers of files.

Anyway going back to the personal computer thing. Clearly Siedel wouldn't be in this boat had he used his own personal laptop.

Oil up $5.09 today

2008-06-26T13:46:00.001-07:00

5 bucks folks. Anything happen today to cause that? Some refinery blow up? Did Israel blow up something? Did the Iranian president fart? Did an oil tanker sink? Was there a riot in Nigeria? Did Hugo Chavez call Bush names again? Did the Chinese double their order? India?

What exactly happened to justify that kind of increase? A Brokerage is having problems? What's that got to do with oil discovery, pumping, refining or delivery? Pure speculation folks. Did the US Dollar drop in value by 50 cents? 25 cents? 10 cents? Demand is down and Supplies are adequate so what's the deal?

Speculation and profiteering.

That Pinging noise...?

2008-06-17T13:46:00.000-07:00

And so the NY Times reports that people with engines recommending premium are putting in regular instead.

Even though the car’s manual says he should use premium, Mr. Alterio, 59, said the occasional pinging from his engine, caused by using the lower-octane gas, is worth the savings.

Yeah that pinging noise? Well let me explain what that is. See your computer AKA ECU, determines when the spark plug ought to ignite the air fuel mixture in your engine for optimal power and lowest emissions. The detonation of this mixture happens somewhere around TDC (top dead center) and usually somewhere after the piston has reached TDC.

That pinging noise is the fuel igniting beforeq the ECU sends the spark. That is called pre-ignition. It is happening before the piston reaches TDC and it puts HUGE pressure on the piston. It is akin to hitting the piston with a hammer while it is trying to travel in an upwards direction.

Fuel economy suffers. Pollutants, especially the deadly NOx gasses, go through the roof and you cna destroy your pistons and piston rings. You don't want to know what that will cost you. So if you have plans on keeping that vehicle for any amount of time, I would strongly, strongly suggest that if your engine is pinging on regular, that you pump it up a notch or you will spend that "savings" either on rebuilding the engine or putting a downpayment on another vehicle.

Automotive experts say that following the manufacturer’s instructions is advisable, and that some high-performance cars can experience knocking and hesitation when accelerating, and possibly some engine damage, if regular gas is used when a higher grade is recommended.
“The only thing I’ve noticed is more money in my wallet,” said Steve Altman, standing alongside a black 2007 Mercedes on Lee Highway in Arlington, across the Potomac River from Washington. He made the switch from premium gas two weeks ago, he said, and his car runs no differently than before. Still, he plans to add a fuel injection cleaner at the end of the month, just in case.

Oh yeah, most of those injector cleaners are shyt. Unless one is popping Chevron Techron (which I recommend) you're guaranteed to be wasting your money. Of course that stuff isn't exactly cheap.

2008-06-10T05:54:00.000-07:00

AT&T Must be tickled pink to have the iPhone give free advertising to their rival Verizon Wireless.

Steve Jobs at WWDC2008

2008-06-09T19:04:00.001-07:00

Isn't he looking a bit gaunt? Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen him so slim.
And I recall that Mr. Jobs was discussing the security issues with RIM, including a little comment about how RIM's servers were a point of failure, yet now mobile Me uses, well, Apple Servers. Of course Apple is not going to be between a corporation and it's phones, but still, given the numerous times .Mac has gone down....

Edit: Some people are claiming that Steve Jobs looked no less "slim" than he did last year or before. BS. There have been numerous photos of the man around in the last year, and he clearly has less hair now and far less body fat. if he was sick with some "bug" it must be some bug that's been inhabiting his stomach for quite a while. I think a lot of people are plain scared to discuss it, but Steve was not looking all that good Monday. Sounded cool, but did not look right at all.

I don't know if he's been on chemo or on some low calorie diet where you purposely under eat, it's really not my business. But folks who say Steve is looking "normal" are either in denial or need there eyes checked.

Bike To Work Week 2

2008-06-05T06:34:00.001-07:00

So week two of the Bike to work program is here. Today's trip went about 5 min faster than the last one. This was due to a couple of things. Firstly since I left 30 min earlier than before, some of the traffic was less than before, so I didn't have to wait at some unlighted intersections as long as I had to last week.

Secondly, I did a better job of pacing myself and recovering from hill climbs. I cannot stress enough the importance of pacing. So fo example, I did not pedal down hills this time. This conserved energy for the final hill. I'm not going faster than 30 MPH so, it make little sense to pedal when I'm already moving at 26 or so MPH.

lastly is proper cadence control. a lot of people, including myself often use too hard a gear for going uphill. They put a lot of stress on their knees and legs pushing a hard gear. Instead i is better to get a good cadence going that allows you to maintain a decent speed with decent turnover where you're not fighting the bike and gravity.

On a closing noteI have to say that there are some really rude people on the road. It's not cool to put the nose of your car into an intersection when a bike is approaching. It's scary and it pisses me off. Also, check your mirrors when pulling out of parking spots. You should assume that the bike is moving faster than you think it it's moving. In most unrban settngs we can hit the posted speed limits.

I think next week I will start doing this twice weekly. I will need to get a portable fridge for my office because sports drinks from vending machines are pricey.

Running on Empty? Repair Bill Soon Come

2008-06-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

So we find that some people are allowing their cars to run out of gas in their efforts to not go broke filling up their tanks. However; should the continue to do so, they may soon find themselves at the receiving end of a bill for a fuel pump replacement. Many cars have fuel pumps that reside in the gas tank of the vehicle. These electric pumps are cooled by the fuel in the tank. As you run out of fuel there is less liquid actually splashing the little motor and it can get hot and burn out. Added to the potential problems is that many older vehicles have some sediment at the bottom of the tank. Each time you let the fuel tank go bone dry, you increase the chances of that sediment collecting on the strainer and impeding the fuel flow and increasing the load on the electric motor. Hence, the practice of allowing the tank to go dry may lead to premature fuel pump failure and a decent sized bill. I recently replaced my fuel pump (for other reasons) and the pump alone ran about $150 retail. I did the work myself so I didn't have to pay to have it installed, but such a job would cost you between one half hour to an hour of billing. So it is entirely possible that a consumer, in an attempt to save money, could end up with a $200 fuel pump bill, which at $4.00/gallon works out to 50 gallons of gasoline. Worth it?

Bike To Work

2008-05-30T07:34:00.001-07:00

And so today marks day one of my summer bike to work saga.

Last year I wanted to bike to work, but two thinigs stopped that. First and foremost my office was, at the time far away from any lockerroom with a shower. There was no way I was going to stop at the gym, change and shower and hen get back on the bike and bike anther mile or so to my office and get sweaty again. Nor was I going to go to my office and be smelly all day. Now my office is within walking distance of the gym so it's on.

The trip is 12.5 miles (half my usual weekend ride). It is mostly up hill. with the last portion being entirely up hill. That portion is about .5 miles but it is not good for someone who really doesn't do too much hills. I expect that within the next 3 weeks or so I will be able yo get up the hill without a drink break. The problem is that it is about a half mile from another longer but less steep hill. So all that back to back hill climbing is not good riht now.

We had a little incident this morning though. I went off course to attempt not having to cross a road, when I rn outof road. Apparently some overgrown bushes had cut into the shoulder and rigt beside me was a NJ transit bus. Needless to say I will not be going that way again.

Overall it took me abot 1 hour to make the trip. That is slow by my nomal standards, but then again my normal standards do not include these kinds of hills. I expect to drop these times by end of summer.

Anyway, big props to Maemomapper, GPSlim and a Nokia N800 which I used to map out the route. I will ge the elevation changes a-la-Tour de France.

And for those wondering, this is not an attempt to save on gasoline though by calculations I save at least $4.04 (current price of premium unleaded) per day of biking to work. The plan is for twice weekly trips so the savings on gas work out to bout $10 bucks a week. However, the purchasing of energy food and drink serves to offset some of that savings.

the $80 oil change

2008-05-12T06:51:00.000-07:00

You know, up until Feb, I had two 20 year old cars. I do most of the maintenance myself. I do the regular oil changes, fuel filter, spark plugs, distributor, etc. I haven't paid for an oil change in many many years. So yesteday I go to Speedly lube No. 99 to change the oil on a recently aquired Z3. The manufacturer apparently specifies synthetic oil. That joint ran my $80 bucks.

On top of being charged for the oil, they tacked on some 10 buck extra for doing a synth change. Oh did I mention that one jackass there broke my interior door handle and didn't even have the decency to say so? Last time Speedy Lube No. 99 get's my car, either one. Oh and then there was the unasked for car wash. I hand wash my car because I don't think putting a convertible through a car wash is a good idea but there it was on it's way down before I could stop them. Oh and the final straw being they reset the service interval light. Did anyone ask to have the service interval light reset? No. Apparently no one at this place has been told about how the service interval light on BMW's are for things other than oil changes. All I wanted was the oil change and I said so.

Now I'm not sure whether the previous owner had done synth changes before, but given that I'm going to need to change out the oil when the temperatures stay above 60 degrees (in the next month). I'm not happy to think I'll be tossing this oil I just paid for, for a heavier mix and I think I'm going to forgo the synth since as stated I have a 20 year old that has never seen synth oil and runs just fine thank you.

$80 oil change indeed.

About That Webcam on your iMac

2008-04-29T08:50:00.000-07:00

According to the Sûreté du Québec, Lesiewicz made friends with teenage girls in internet chatrooms, sent them emails which infected their computers with malware, and then persuaded them to pose naked online.

The victims are then said to have been contacted by another internet user called "Dave", who told the women that nude photos of them would be posted on the net unless they posed again in front of their webcams.

So..running Windows on that iMac or MacBook or Mac Book Pro?

http://www.net-security.org/malware_news.php?id=936

Cities Busted for illegal Yellow Light Lengths

2008-03-31T07:02:00.001-07:00

And ao we find that the governments of certain states and cities have been busted for illeglly shortening the yellow lights in an effort to give out citations via red light cameras. Just so you understand: it is a knnown fact that a relatively long yellow light results in fewer accidents and fewer run red lights. Municipalities that purposefully shorten the lights and directly responsible for creating a hazardous situation for motorists in a clear case of money grubbing. Zthe quesion I have is why haven't these towns been sued?

The Wendy Williams Experience

2008-03-27T13:01:00.001-07:00

Where do we start on Wendy Williams? Read for yourself.

Tupac Story a Fraud

2008-03-27T12:57:00.001-07:00

It made for a fun read, but apparently the LA Times story about the Tupac shooting and robbery was based on forged documents. Like I said before, Puff didn't have anythinig to fear from the report.

Now the question is whether the Times will have to pay.

More Infidelity

2008-03-18T05:56:00.001-07:00

After Spitzer gets busted for the "High Class Ho" and in comes out the Matos-McGreevy was having threesomes,David Paterson's wife admits to having affairs "with men"
Men?

Well they worked it out so if Paterson is cool with it, then I can't complain.

Men?

[update]

Oh damn! they both got multiple parties!!

Now I Aint Sayin' She's a Gold Digger

2008-03-18T05:46:00.001-07:00

But

Man is rich already.
4 years and she asks for a quarter mil?

McCartney ought to have gotten custody of his child and avoided the $70,000/year and gotten his own nanny and put her in school himself.

Heather Mills: She can go get a job.

Bear Market for Bear Stearns.

2008-03-16T19:15:00.001-07:00

Bear Stearns purchased for $250 Million by JP Morgan Chase. Bear Stearns specialized in Mortgages, has been around forever and is sold for a quarter bil? I predicted that the market would drop into the 11,000'a but with this news I expect the market to freee fall this week and maybe we'll see 10,000 range.

Sale happening on a Sunday? With Fed oversight? Trying to beat the Asian stock market opening? Not goo at all.

USB Control and Adesso Flexible KB

2008-03-07T16:34:00.001-08:00

Although I will probably be looking hard at the iPhone in June depending on th availablilty of a demoed navigation app, I have decided to test out one of those rollable keyboards with my800 in Hoat mode.

The USB control app is pretty straight forward but the keyboard while way more convenient than the onscreen board for longer form writing, is pretty error prone especially the space key.

The USB Control app is very picky about what kind of kwyboard is attached to. It is probably due to pickiness of the ITOS2008 software.

Overall thought I would not have even attempted a post of this length with the thumbboard but I won't be attempting monster posts as is standard on my other blog.

Don't Use 3rd Party Fonts

2008-02-26T12:43:00.001-08:00

From Xlr8yourmac.com

Upon calling Redmond for help, Microsoft's Mac Tech Support laughably told me after emailing them a bunch of sample files and enduring several long periods on hold that "the engineers writing the program decided no 3rd-party fonts were being supported in Office 2008 and that I could only use Microsoft fonts."

Can you believe that? I have an old version of Office here (V.x) and I have no intentions of upgrading unless I'm forced to. I use Neo-Office and thus far it does everything I need.

Speed Cameras for I-95

2008-02-20T06:53:00.000-08:00

And so CT wants to put speed cameras on I-95 supposedly to protect motorists from speeders. Never mind that speed is never the actual cause of any accident on any road. Of course the real deal here is revenue since if speeding were actually all that dangerous people would actually be arrested for some crime and thrown in jail for doing it. But no, cameras, like Modified Ford Mustangs are the signs of a state going after revenues. I suppose that CT has to do something since it doesn't have the network of tolls that other states have imposed on drivers.

However; in keeping with the "safety" angle, we should look at where motorhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifists have been suffering under the big brother state for some time now:

We drive along at what we judge to be a safe speed. Then we catch sight of one of those menacing yellow boxes on their grey stalks, take our eyes off the road and the rear-view mirror to check the speedometer, and slam on the anchors. Before we know it - wham! - the bonnet of the car behind has thumped us up the backside.

This hasn't happened to me yet, touch wood, but you have only to approach a speed camera on a free-flowing road to realise that it must happen fairly often. Suddenly, every driver in front applies the brakes, and slows to precisely 40mph, or whatever the limit may be...

That is what is so unjust about speed cameras. These lumps of metal and wire cannot distinguish between somebody driving safely at 80mph, on a clear dry road, and a maniac tail-gating at the same speed in a blizzard.

The penalty for both - the careful driver and the potential killer - is almost always the same: a fine and three penalty points on their licences. Four strikes and the offender is off the road for a year, which for many can mean losing their livelihood...

Yes, we all agreed that we hated speed cameras. We all agreed, too, that some of them caused accidents rather than simply failed to prevent them (the figures for the Thames Valley police area, where serious accidents had increased in very nearly half of the places where speed cameras had been installed, made that point powerfully).

There you go. Cameras don't do squat for safety but do much for taxes.. I mean revenue.

Yet day by day I see people yammering on their cell phones, texting on their cell phones and reading newspapers while driving. But at least they're observing the speed limit right?

Whither X-Serve RAID

2008-02-19T07:24:00.001-08:00

So Apple Announces a new version of the X-SAN product and lo and behold in their diagram the X-Serve RAID is nowhere to be found. Instead we see this Promise RAID. if you search for the X-Serve RAID you are redirected to the Promise RAID. Apple is out of the RAID business.

Snitches in the infield

2008-02-13T20:11:00.001-08:00

I'm not one for the whole "Stop snitchin'" thing but how is it your "very good friend" is giving you up? Makes you wonder if baseball players have real friends. I'm just saying, why not say "I don't recall"?

McNamee

2008-02-07T17:15:00.001-08:00

So let me get this straight. This guy injects his clients with steroids and keeps the needles, gauze and vials he used, with their blood on it for 7-8 years?
What? Was this bribe material? Or can we say "set up."

Money Matters

2008-02-05T11:09:00.001-08:00

I've been called all kinds of cheap because I had, until recently, 2 20 year old cars. I now have one 20 year old car and one 11 year old car. I live well below my means and insist on paying credit card balances at the end of the month. I religiously save my spare change and all singles accrued at the end of the week.

I take my money very seriously. Which probably explains my current singlehood. But that's another story all together.

In any event the NY Times has a shocking article on just how badly some people are managing their money. Shocking to me at least because I cannot imagine even having $200,000 in debt or having a personal savings rate of -7% or -14%.

For the 34 million households who took money out of their homes over the last four years by refinancing or borrowing against their equity — roughly one-third of the nation — the savings rate was running at a negative 13 percent in the middle of 2006, according to Moody’s Economy.com. That means they were borrowing heavily against their assets to finance their day-to-day lives.

By late last year, the savings rate for this group had improved, but just to negative 7 percent and mostly because tightened standards made loans harder to get.

“For them, that game is over,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com. “They have been spending well beyond their incomes, and now they are seeing the limits of credit.”

No 12" Mac Book. Ever.

2008-01-16T05:54:00.000-08:00

Well if you watched the Macworld Keynote you know that there will be no 12" MacBook. Why? Because Steve Jobs said so. When he was leading into his intro of the "Air" he stated that other manufacturers compromise their sub-notebooks by giving them 11" and 12" screens. So Mr. Jobs thinks that the 12" form factor is a bad thing and would "compromise" the MacBook. Regardless to the fact that many people who have 12" Powerbooks have them because we WANT the "compromised" space and many of us have in fact gone from larger PowerBooks to the 12", Steve doesn't like it and what Steve doesn't like doesn't get made.

Steve also knows that all of us holdouts will eventually have to fold as batteries die, and new "gotta have" apps come out as Intel Only apps and of course we get tired of the 1.5 Ghz processor that the last iteration had.

Yes, the 12" Powerbok is dead and the prospects of a new 12" model has just been buried. Enjoy yours while it works.

Time Capsule

2008-01-15T12:52:00.000-08:00

So is there some hidden "feature" in Time Machine to recognize a Time Capsule, are we to expect an OS update to enable this on other Macs, or will this work with any AFP network drive with a supposed update? Or maybe there's some key combination I need to use with Leopard (or a file to hack).

MacBook Air..

2008-01-15T12:45:00.000-08:00

Gives the Kiss of Death to FireWire. The first Mac model I know of, since the clamshell iBooks and original iMac to not have a FireWire port. Though come to think of it I rarely use it on my 12 incher and then only for a webcam.

Proposed NJ Turnpike Tolls

2008-01-14T17:05:00.001-08:00

On my other blog I complained about how much it cost me to drive to Miami (or was that Baltimore?). Anyway the crux of my complaint was the ridiculous numbers of tolls that one has to pay between NJ and Washington DC. For the privilege of traveling over a bridge in Delaware one pays a toll. I mean a toll to go all of maybe 5 miles. Then another and another and another. In the space of say 50 miles, one can pay at least 3 tolls. Why? Road, like speeding tickets are all about revenue. just as speeding tickets are about fattening county coffers so are toll roads. they go to pay for things unrelated to roads. I would prefer to pay a federal 'road tax" and a state "road tax" once and be done with all tolls from border to border. Tolls add to and cause traffic. When I made that trip last summer, whenever I came to a congested area I bet myself that there was a toll coming up. 90% of the time I was right. Cars emit more pollution when they are crawling and gas mileage suffers, unless you're in a hybrid or electric car So not only do tolls cause traffic problems, it also contributes to pollution. But what is worse is that one ought to be able to drive from one end of the country to the other without:

a) being surveilled (EasyPass)
b) being pick pocketed (tolled).

Now I understand how states may want to charge commercial entities for using the roads to make money. Fine. Federal Road tax and State road tax on businesses that make travel exemptions or who are in the business of deliveries. In fact I think if New Jersey, and the rest of the states, were to stop giving out Corporate welfare cheques (called tax breaks and tax incentives) there'd be all kinds of money in the state coffers.

Another Reason to not use Bluetooth headsets

2008-01-02T07:03:00.000-08:00

"All that is necessary is knowing the device address, which can be easily sniffed, and the secret pin, which defaults to 0000. The headset audio is tapped while not in a call, so any room conversation the headset's mic can pick up can potentially be listened to remotely."

http://www.hackinthebox.org/url.php?url=25340

Listen to this guy

2007-12-20T07:53:00.001-08:00

I saw this on Alternet. Don't laugh. Take this very seriously. VERY SERIOUSLY:

I've read books by evolutionary psychologists (e.g., Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters) that say the same thing - women want to marry men with power and money. I've seen it many times. But there's another side to that equation. Women want rich men, but many of them are willing to cheat on these rich men with poor but handsome men.

I'm 6', 195 lbs at 10% body fat, green eyes, a full head of frankly luxurious wavy hair, and I'm 99% percentile (over 8") in the other height measurement. I'm from a working-class family, and for a while, I pursued a career that was aimed at helping my fellow human beings more than it was aimed at making good money. I had plenty of women who wanted to have sex with me, no strings attached, and a few who actually cheated on their shorter, fatter, dumber, glasses-wearing boyfriends. One was worried she got pregnant and plotted to pass the spawn off as her boyfriend's. This was because these short, fat, stupid men were from richer families that were able to put them through schools with no student loans, set them up with cars and houses right out of graduation, and in some cases, even gave them high-paying jobs.

After a few years, I got wise to the way things work, and I got out of social work and got a job in IT, tripling my income instantly. I was at my IT job for one week before I met my wife. If I was still working in social work, I'm certain that I'd never have attracted my wife, except perhaps for quick rebound sex from one of her previous relationships.

The lesson is this: women want men with money and good family connections as husbands. Many, however, are willing to take handsome, genetically-gifted men who don't have as much money for lovers.

If you're some 5'8," pot-bellied, balding creep who had the good fortune of being born to a dad who's a senior law partner or a banker, you've probably got a pretty hot chick because of your Lexus and big house. But I'd keep a close eye on your hot wife or girlfriend. I never knowingly cheated with anyone, but I've unwittingly cuckolded a good number of you guys because your girls want some hot sex with a tall athletic stud while their fat, ugly rich husbands are toiling away at the office. This is no joke. Be warned. Some of you might already be raising the babies of guys like me without even knowing it.

The Strange Case of Child Pornography

2007-12-19T08:51:00.001-08:00

And so this morning I read about a case in which a man, whose last name is the improbable Sodomski, was busted for having child pornography on his computer. Normally I have no sympathy for such people and I have even reported an online peddler of such material to the authorities when he attempted to send some my way. Homey don't play dat.

However; this case caught my attention because of the underlying privacy concern that it brought up. If you read about most child porn stings you will find that they usually involve a lengthy investigation in which people are caught using some kind of darknet in order to trade in such material. In some cases it involves snail mail. In other words the users involved have thoroughly shown that they have in fact either created, traded in, and purposefully owned child pornography. This is important. Going back to my statement on reporting an online peddler, In that case I was, in fact in possession of child pornography. I didn't ask for it, but it arrived. Knowing how the internet works, there was no doubt that there was a record of that transfer on someone's log and for a times there was a copy on my hard drive. Since I had not done a low level format or a "secure erase". The file, though "deleted" was still in fact on my drive for as long as it took for the OS to decide to write something else to that space. This time depends on the level of usage of the computer. This is somewhat important as we look at the case.

The man involved here brought his computer to Circuit City in order to have a DVD drive installed in his computer. At some point during this "install" the "tech" person did a search of the Hard drive and found "stuff that looked like adult material". the "tech" decided to click on the file to see what it was and discovered the child porn at issue. A judge ruled that the man's privacy was not infringed because he could not expect that the contents of his HD would not be looked at while the computer was out of his possession. I work with computers for a living so I know the process and this ruling is pretty bad.

Firstly, I'm not clear as to what Circuit City's policy towards their customers private data but I would be extremely disturbed, to the point of not using their "service" if they did not have a policy of "do not touch and do not look at" customer data. Furthermore I would be equally shocked if, unlike any other corporation I know about, Circuit City does not have a "no viewing of adult content" policy in effect as well. Let's assume for a minute that Circuit City does not have such policies on the books. Does this mean that Circuit City Techs are free to peruse user data which would inevitably include personal information of all kinds? Do they understand the inherent security risk this entails? If a customer has their identity stolen after having service at Circuit City, Circuit City could find itself at the receiving end of a lawsuit for knowingly allowing third parties to access user data. It's called willful negligence. That's not good.

But moving on from there. The process of installing and testing a DVD burner does not include a windows search. The only software portion of the install is the driver for the DVD drive (if needed, some drives already have the drivers in the host OS). After installing said software the machine would be rebooted and a test burn of a DVD would be performed. The tech ought to have a file they can test on a USB drive. In other words there is no good reason to do a search of the users system. So the question here is why were the techs performing this search? And why were they interested in the porn on the system? That's like having your car in for new tires and since the shop has a sign that the shop is not responsible for items left in the vehicle, the mechanics go through your glove box, digs in your seats for change or makes a few phone calls on your built in phone. After all, you left the car in their possession so you couldn't actually expect that they would limit their use of your vehicle to only that which is required to perform the service requested.

That is what bothers me about the ruling. Does Circuit City inform their customers that their data will be accessed? Does Circuit City inform their customers that their data will NOT be accessed? If either of these are the case then Circuit City would be in breech of a legal contract and a) ought to be sued. and b) the evidence ought not be admitted. I don't like option "b" but because I prefer that the law fail on the side of the citizen rather than the state I have to offer that option up.

All a dem dirty

2007-12-13T13:01:00.001-08:00

So now that the report is out showing that all matter of people in all the clubs in the MLB have been using steroids, Jon Gruber finally has something to say about someone other than Barry Bonds. I wonder if that little NY Yankees icon will be doing a reappearance on his site in the future. I think he should also provide a nice little "daring" post in regards to putting astericks on the World Series winnings of the Yanks.

Speaking of astericks, since every team had a juiced player, wasn't the field actually "level"? Does the steroid use of players on one team negate the advantages of the steroid users of the opposing teams?

Sim City DS

2007-12-11T07:45:00.001-08:00

I used to play this game on my computer back in the day. I recently picked it up for my DS and have been wisked away to a time when time would fly and not bullets or lasers. I was working on my city, looked up and it was 1AM. I even had dreams about how to plan out the city. Good distraction from the auto woes (yes, still). I hearty recommend for those who previously enjoyed the game or those looking for DS fare sans violence or high speed.