zoobooks!!
via Plume
Whoa.
It doesn’t seem like it’s been 6 months since updating this blog. A bit has changed since last posting. I went to Dragon*Con in September. My wife decided she wanted a divorce shortly afterwards. Moved in with some great friends. Got a job 5 minutes away & I’ve been working there for the past three months.
I’m going to probably move this site to a real domain at some point in this coming month. I’m also thinking of completely changing the format of this site. I honestly have no idea why I’m writing this. I know that no one reads this. Ah, well.
Movies of a Lifetime!
The past couple days I’ve been helping a few friends out with their new podcasting endeavor. Got them a new website that does what they want. It’s also a hilarious podcast about movies. So, if my 0 readers want to check it out, the link is here:
Go subscribe!
Let me know if I’m missing something
Just read an article about the deal Google & Verizon made on MSNBC (found here). It seems they’re blaming Google for a lot of what Verizon wants to do. So here’s my take on it.
Verizon wants to be able to control what goes on on their network (ala AT&T). Not once in this article did I see anything about Google blocking network access or telling users what they can’t view. It’s all Verizon.
“But the domain with the most intensive growth potential for new audiences — mobile and data-heavy services — would be locked down and controlled by Verizon.“
“Verizon could discriminate all it wants…”
“Verizon, as a wireline broadband provider, wants maximum control over are those data-heavy ‘special services.’”
“…Skype would not have a chance to compete with any video telephony service Verizon might develop in the near future.“
“Netflix would be at a disadvantage trying to move high-quality video over Verizon’s fiber-optic pipes if Verizon decides to offer its own service.“
It seems, to me, that this is ALL about Verizon. Google is just standing in the background saying, “Hey, if you want to do that, we’re not going to stop you.” Which doesn’t bother me a bit.
This brings up Sprint’s network. While Verizon claims to have unlimited data transfer, they really cap it at 5gb because they assume that that’s all people are going to need since they have another ISP at home. Sprint offers a completely unlimited data plan & I can prove this as I used 35 gigabytes last month. I actually dropped Comcast in favor of using my Evo’s tethering for my Internet access. Now this may seem silly to some, but to be able to drop a company like Comcast, who may say they care about their customers, but, let’s face it, they don’t, was a huge weight off my shoulders.
And about Skype not being used, Skype is already in bed with Verizon by brining their retarded app exclusively to them. (I say retarded in the literal meaning here. It’s absolutely horrendous & a shred of what it could, and should, be.) But if more people supported an open protocol (IE SIP), people wouldn’t have this problem. Skype made Fring take the ability to video chat off of their (Fring) app. However, you can still video chat using Fring or SIP. But because no one uses either of these, Fring is essentially dead in the water in the Android market.
Eventually people are going to wise up & realize that open source not only helps them, it helps the entire Internet. Closing things off like Verizon, not Google, wants to do is only hurting Verizon. There are always going to be hackers & geeks that put custom roms on their phones & will figure out a way to make a protocol work when it shouldn’t.
Gonna keep doing this as I have a lot of fun with it.
The news article “U.S. to Sell F-15 Fighter Jets to Saudis” (found here) has some interesting comments. I’m REALLY tired right now so I’m going to make this one probably around 3-4 comments. Unless I find some really good ones.
“MY BIRTHDAY IS SOON AND I WISH SOMEONE WILL MAKE MY BDAY – WISH COME TRUE – I WOULD LOVE TO WAKE UP AND HEAR SOMEONE KILLED OSAMA OBAMA . THATS A WISH I HOPE COMES TRUE” – barney742
Can people really get away with posting this stuff in a public forum? I feel like this is borderline death threat.
“The F-15 is designated ‘Eagle’ not ‘Raptor” and is in two major variants, which are we selling? The F-15 single-seat fighter or the two-seat F-15 Strike Eagle? This has a tremendous difference on the relevance of the story as to whether we are supporting Saudi defense or providing significant offensive strike capabilities. Sloppy reporting, the WSJ should not leave covering such stories to college interns…” – savetheplace
“The F-15 is not a RAPTOR….it’s nickname is the “EAGLE”…..almost good reporting…..the Raptor is a newer fighter…….The caption on the picture is WRONG!!!” – legret
“The writer of this article ought to check the facts before printing. The F15 is called the Eagle, the Raptor is the F22.” – pickens
Did these people not see the other posts? These are the newer posts in this article. I know that feeling when you get to correct someone, but someone’s already done it. Nothing to see here. Move along.
“Another day another un american episode for Osama Obama , Well hopefully today is the day someone puts an end to this nightmare those liberals put in office – STOP OSAMA OBAMA ANYWAY POSSIBLE” – nuckingfuts
Cause today, Monday, is an election day, right?
“zvere And Obama and democraps are not ISLAMIC?????” – johnumar
I really wish I would meet someone who posts on foxnews.com that knows what Islam teaches & not just what they’re told from, well, Fox news…
“this is unsat” – Shaun T Ohl
Sure?
“The caption under the photo is wrong, the Raptor is the new F-22 not the F-15 Eagle” – as3po51
Just wanted to throw another one of those in there. I saw like 8 more of those, by the way.
Alright, I’m gonna go have nightmares about these people.
More Fox news comments!
Oh, man, I’m loving all this coverage that WikiLeaks is getting on foxnews.com. The comments on every store are just amazing. Here is the original post & here are some of my favorite comments.
“Wikileaks will have 15 minutes of fame then die out. Most readers only read a few posts, see through the propaganda and never go back.” – dcshipman
For sure. They haven’t been around for 4 years or anything. And they obviously haven’t been leaking documents for that amount of time.
“This action of Wikileaks is treasonous (at least for any US citizen involved) and an act of international terrorism. I am sure that in the arsenal of cyber weapons we have something that can take these servers down. In addition, anyone who is associated with wikileaks and the associated web servers who continue to distribute these documents should be arrested if they step foot one foot on US soil. If one american is killed because of these leaked documents then these individuals should go through a short trial and subsequently executed. We, as a nation, should not take these actions lightly and should respond with the appropriate overwhelming deadly force to make sure that no one in the future does this again!” – paint_man
You haven’t looked up the definition of “terrorism”, have you?
“The Pentagon needs to leak the address of this server.” – libbind
http://88.80.13.160/ There’s one of their, I’m sure, many IP addresses. That wasn’t that hard to find, either. Want their physical address? http://www.prq.se/ It’s right there on the bottom right. Have fun doing nothing with either of those things.
“I say use a Predator drone and get rid of this garbage.” – wallym
WHAT?!
“The U.S. should cut off all aid to these countries” – Terry M
Cause we give Sweden sooooooooooooooooooooooo much help. Last time I checked, they offered to help us with hurricane Katrina & the oil spill. Let me go check again….yep, we said no to their offer with hurricane Katrina but not with the oil spill. Strange that we would accept help for one thing but not another when it’s in the exact same fucking area!
“Freedom of speech must always be protected otherwise our way of life will cease to exist. With that being said, for the same reason you cannot yell ‘fire’ in a movie theater, you cannot disclose information that will lead to the deaths of our troops. Express your doubts about the war, fine – leak info that will aid our enemies, sinful.” – kkarl
SINFUL?! Really?! Wow. I was unaware that was in any kind of bible.
This bunch of comments was especially retarded with only 79 comments at the time of reading. It’s amazing. I think I’m going to try to make this a regular occurrence. No one reads this, but it’ll be fun to look back on in a year.
Posted from WordPress for Android
I love foxnews comments!
What doesn’t make sense is how people are so incredibly retarded. I was over at foxnews.com, as I do from time to time, to read comments on the stories that they are clearly misreporting on. The last one I read, entitled “Thieves Meet Scofflaws? Pirate Bay and Wikileaks Join Forces” (found here), has to have some of the most retarded people on the internet commenting on it. These people have absolutely no clue how the internet works. Some of my favorite comments are:
“Can we PLEASE just bomb the d@mned Swedes and get it over with???” – veetwin
No, we can’t. Well, we can, but not over something on the internet. Would you bomb your neighbor if they leaked nude pictures of you online?
“We need to shut down Switzerland….. amazing the intellectual level of the people writing here, it truly is a freak show! not even in movies have i seen people so dumb, but hey, reality always surpasses fiction! thanks fox news for proving that every day!!” – worldtraveler12
Shut down Switzerland. Really? Last time I checked, Switzerland wasn’t also called Wal-Mart.
“If we find out where you are, your HISTORY!” – Steve Casey
My history what?
“It is time for the U.S. govt. to approach a highly skilled hacker and offer him big money to perform a web based search and destroy of wiki leak’s servers. And I don’t mean one of the “retired” hackers that now contracts out their out of practice knowledge to companies. I mean approach a currently active, highly skilled hacker and offer them $10M If all WikiLeaks server’s hard drives get corrupted beyond recovery and their backups tainted.” – msullivan106
This one was my favorite. It implies that they don’t have offline backups.
A lot of the comments on foxnews.com show that these people don’t have an education higher than 3rd grade. With their capitalized words in the middle of sentences, misuse of periods (and lack of periods) & not spelling simple words correctly. Obviously this bunch are highly intelligent & should not be messed with.
Favorite Android apps
So I’ve had my new EVO for a little over a week now & I absolutely love it. Over this past week it’s been really hard to focus on school with such a bright, shiny new toy that also makes phone calls. So here are some of my favorite apps that I’ve found. I’m not going to categorize this list cause I’m lazy.
3 - It’s the best music player I’ve found. A lot of people also like another one whose name is escaping right now, and it was alright, but it was a paid app, so I avoided it.
AppAware - Fun app that lets you see what people are installing on their Android devices around you.
AppBrain - Create an account using your google account & this will allow you to sync what apps you have on your device to the internet. Good for backups or if you want to let someone know what you have installed. For example, here’s mine.
c:geo – The best geocaching app I’ve found. At least until Ground Speak makes one for Android.
CardStar - Gets rid of the cards on your keychain. Scan the card, enter the name & let the store scan your phone.
Dropbox - Online file backup. Combine this with a file manager (which I will get to) & you can backup anything on your phone.
Evernote - One of the most popular apps on the iPhone. Now with more open source. (Evernote isn’t. Android is. 
)
Fring - Even though you can’t use Skype with them now, it’s still a fantastic app. Also the best Ekiga app there is. VoIP & video telephony through this app. Can’t beat free.
Handcent sms – Better looking messaging for Android. And more customizable, too.
Layar – Augmented reality browser. Find fun things to do around you.
Linda File Manager – Browse your filesystem with this app. I think I’ve used this everyday.
Pandora - If you don’t know what Pandora is at this point, why do you have an Android phone?
Prey – I had an update about this a while back for your computer. If you don’t have any other app, this is the most important one. If you lose your phone or it gets stolen, this is going to give you a good chance of finding it or getting it back from whoever stole it. Absolute must download. It was the first thing I installed when I got my EVO.
Skyfire browser – Very quick browser & seems to support flash better than the default Android browser. But that problem will be fixed in 2.2.
Swype – Different keyboard than the default. You really need to watch a video of this to see how it works. It’s tough to explain.
Twidroyd – Twitter & identi.ca updater. There’s a pro version of this, too. Really nice interface. Much more polished from the last time I used it.
Vignette – There’s a demo of this on the market that allows for smaller resolution shots from your camera. It’s a fun app that does effects to your pictures.
And if you’ve rooted your phone:
SetCPU – This may not be as important on other phones, but the EVO is a battery hog. With this app, I can underclock my phone’s CPU to 245 mhz when the screen is off. Why does it need to run at 1 ghz when I’m not doing anything?
Wireless tether – Makes your phone into a ad-hoc wireless hotspot that shares your phone’s data connection. I can has 4G please?
There are others, but I got tired of typing midway through this. Enjoy!
