The Writer's Ebook

What I've learned about women from dating sites

2011-12-11T19:14:00.000-08:00

They think “hanging out with friends and family” is a hobby. They also think that “my family is important to me” is a part of their personality and a trait unique to them. Because you know most people couldn’t care less about their family, most people are all about themselves.
They think music and movies are interests. Because again it’s unique to them. Isn’t that kind of like saying your interests include breathing and going to the bathroom?
They are blissfully unaware of the state of the economy and think that unemployment is a lifestyle choice.
They’re not ashamed to put requirements for your income, education, job status, car status, and living arrangement on their profile. Even if they have a GED and work as a gas station janitor, you still better have yo shit togetha if you want to get with this fine ass ho. Aint nothin wrong with being a gold digger fool! They broke so you better be able to make up the difference in their lack of income.
They may be a hairy, 400 pound heffer but they still think guys just want to use them for their body and they ‘aint that kind of girl.’ Sometimes this is the only thing they bother to say about themselves on their profile. What’s interesting is that the hot women rarely find the need to put this disclaimer on their profile. I have a few theories about why this is: 1. the hot women get so many requests for sex all through their lives that they just don’t feel the need to be so theatrical about it, they just ignore the guys and get on with their lives. 2. Guys figure the heffers are desperate and therefore it’s easier to get in their pants and they figure something’s better than nothing so they do actually constantly message the ugly girls asking them to put out. 3. One guy tried to get in Bessie’s pants and she got such an ego boost out of it that now she’s going to milk it for all it’s worth.
Even if they are a hairy 500 pound gorilla, they’re still too good for you and you better be young and hot.

*Gasp* You pig!

What makes you think I want your sex?!

They don’t get the concept of pictures: 1. they think we want to see what their ex boyfriend looks like, 2. when they have low self esteem and hate to have their picture taken the solution is to make an idiotic face and look even worse because they think it’s funny to anyone else but their dumb immature friends, 3. they think it’s fun for us to see a picture of them with a group of friends and try to guess which one is her.
They’re not into the bar scene so they thought they’d give this a try and they think a web profile is a very strange thing to do and they’re embarrassed by it, but sitting in a public place waiting for a half drunk stranger they know nothing about to pick them up is the normal thing that they’re supposed to do.
They think they need to explain to you what a “big girl” or a BBW is and they think you won’t notice they are a big girl if they don’t point it out to you. They’re afraid you’ll pick them up for the date and go “what the hell in your pictures you look like a Victoria’s Secret model you liar!!!!” and burn rubber getting out of there.
Just because they’re on a dating site doesn’t mean they actually want to date and you’re a pig for assuming they do. Just because they send you a picture of themselves naked with their legs spread doesn’t mean they’re interested in sex and if you assume that, you’re a pervert and you’re just using them for sex.
You better have good looks, money, or a big dick. You don’t have to have all three but you have to have one. And if you have one or more, you can do whatever you want to them and it’s all good. You can beat the shit out of them, call them names, do whatever you want. BUT, when you break up, your dick magically becomes small and they tell everyone about how small it is. The reason they stayed with him all that time if it’s so small is because ‘shut up asshole’ and because you have a small dick too. Actually I learned this in life, not the dating sites.
They have a kid or five kids. You know this because the kids are in their pictures and they’ve answered yes to the profile question ‘do you have kids.’ But they don’t think you get what that means. They have to explain to you that their kids are important to them and will always come first. And here I thought they were going to put their kids up for adoption for me. She’s gotta keep her kids?! What a bitch.

Ghost story: Objects moving on their own part 2

2011-05-25T01:24:00.000-07:00

Read part 1 here: http://writersebook.blogspot.com/2010/08/ghost-story-objects-moving-on-their-own.html

When I was 8 and 9 in the mid 1980's we lived in a haunted house. It was at 42 Seaside Avenue, Westbrook, CT. We all had crazy experiences there from hearing noises to seeing things move on their own. We even got a couple pictures. Parts of the house were built around 1830 and the rest had been added on in the 20th century some time. The older parts of the house was where most things happened. Not all, but most of them. Our bedrooms, unfortunately were all in the old part of the house.

The second time I saw objects move was actually a lot more interesting than the first. My mother was in her room and she called me and my brother Todd into the room saying, "you gotta see this!" She had this big dark dresser with a mirror on it and a big top with a raised bar in the middle. She had all these bottles of perfume lined up on it. She took a bottle and put it on the dresser top and it slid across the top and onto the floor. She picked it up and put it in a different place on the dresser, and the same thing happened. She kept doing this and no matter where she put it, the bottle would move itself off the dresser top. But she could put any other bottle of perfume in the same spots, and it wouldn't move. Only that bottle moved, and in every spot. Yet no other bottle moved no matter where she put it. And yes, the dresser was perfectly level and the bottom of the bottle was perfectly flat. Nothing had ever slid off the dresser before and never did again. It had to travel a couple feet on this level surface to get to the edge. This kept happening and she finally had to put the bottle against the raised bar to stop it from sliding off. After that day, that bottle never moved again.

At this point, I need to back up a little bit. When I was 3, we had lived in a house on Breakneck Hill Rd in Westbrook that we loved but because of financial problems, my parents had to give it up. We always called it "the Big House" because it was a big house with a big yard. Now six years later, the house was up for rent again and my parents were trying to get it. On the day of the perfume bottle incident, my mother had been sitting on her bed thinking about how badly she wanted to move back into that house and thinking, "God I hope we get it." That was when the perfume bottle first started to move.

The name of the perfume was "Occur." Not long after that, it did in fact occur. We were able to move back into the Big House and we lived there for 15 years until we were again forced to move. I grew up in that house and it was the best place to grow up you could hope for. Someday when I'm rich I hope to buy it back.

'In gay rights victory, Obama administration won't defend Defense of Marriage Act

2011-02-24T01:08:00.001-08:00

I'm reading about 'In gay rights victory, Obama administration won't defend Defense of Marriage Act' on Fluent News. Here is the link: http://fluentnews.com/s/26496806

Sincerely,

Nathan Mylott

www.nathanmylott.com

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Midnight Inbox Classic – An Inbox For Life [Mac]

2011-02-23T22:45:00.001-08:00

Midnight Inbox Classic – An Inbox For Life [Mac] http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Makeuseof/~3/eU7LnwX9AqY/

Nate Mylott
Http://www.nathanmylott.com
Sent from my Palm Pre

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QueueNoodle: Get Notified About Expiring Netflix Movies

2011-02-23T22:25:00.001-08:00

QueueNoodle: Get Notified About Expiring Netflix Movies http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WebServicesDir/~3/doL-hFfS610/

Nate Mylott
Http://www.nathanmylott.com
Sent from my Palm Pre

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UnknownCaller: Look up Unknown Caller Numbers Online

2011-02-23T22:22:00.001-08:00

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8ontv: Watch Videos & Updates From Popular Websites In A TV-Like Manner

2011-02-23T22:21:00.001-08:00

8ontv: Watch Videos & Updates From Popular Websites In A TV-Like Manner http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WebServicesDir/~3/Sys7pc64sw8/

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Webreader: Wonderful AIR-based desktop client for Google reader

2011-02-23T22:10:00.001-08:00

Webreader: Wonderful AIR-based desktop client for Google reader http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WebServicesDir/~3/33xvp3p-QTM/

Nate Mylott
Http://www.nathanmylott.com
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For your kids (or you): Timtim: Database Of Free Drawings, Cartoons & Cliparts to color or draw online

2011-02-23T21:57:00.001-08:00

Timtim: Database Of Free Drawings, Cartoons & Cliparts http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WebServicesDir/~3/sAZL-U2fOhE/

Nate Mylott
Http://www.nathanmylott.com
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Feb 18, 2001: Dale Earnhardt killed in crash

2011-02-21T20:55:00.001-08:00

URL: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/dale-earnhar...

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Feb 19, 1945: Marines invade Iwo Jima

2011-02-21T20:53:00.001-08:00

URL: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/marines-inva...

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Ten great sources of free teacher reaources #teaching

2011-02-21T18:15:00.001-08:00

Ten great sources of free teacher resources | Curriculum | eSchoolNews.com

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February 20, 1985: Ireland allows sale of contraceptives

2011-02-21T03:13:00.001-08:00

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5 Different Ways to Generate Ideas with These Brainstorming Apps

2011-02-19T05:48:00.001-08:00

5 Different Ways to Generate Ideas with These Brainstorming Apps http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Makeuseof/~3/zPFkC4mMT5Y/

Nate Mylott
Http://natemylott.mp
Sent from my Palm Pre

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5 Different Ways to Generate Ideas with These Brainstorming Apps

2011-02-19T05:46:00.001-08:00

5 Different Ways to Generate Ideas with These Brainstorming Apps http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Makeuseof/~3/zPFkC4mMT5Y/

Nate Mylott
Http://natemylott.mp
Sent from my Palm Pre

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How To Check If Someone Is Stealing Your WiFi – And What You Can Do About It

2011-02-19T05:40:00.001-08:00

How To Check If Someone Is Stealing Your WiFi – And What You Can Do About It http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Makeuseof/~3/2BYkxMzVhr8/

Nate Mylott
Http://natemylott.mp
Sent from my Palm Pre

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Speed Up Your File And Torrent Downloads With Folx Pro for Mac [Giveaway]

2011-02-19T05:33:00.001-08:00

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The Top 8 Websites To Find Maps Of Bike Paths Near You

2011-02-19T05:23:00.001-08:00

The Top 8 Websites To Find Maps Of Bike Paths Near You http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Makeuseof/~3/aYJy0BLqCkk/

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Mass Rep. Ellen Story Drafts cannabis Legalization Bill #mmot

2011-02-15T20:44:00.001-08:00

URL: http://www.cannabisnews.org/united-states-cannabis-news...

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Today in 1898 : The USS Maine explodes, launches Spanish American War. Remember the Maine! #history

2011-02-15T18:50:00.001-08:00

URL: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

In 1976, investigators concluded that the explosion had probably been accidental, not an attack by the Spanish.

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2/13/1633: Galileo in Rome for Inquisition. Put on trial for saying the Earth rotates around the sun.

2011-02-13T13:55:00.001-08:00

URL: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/galileo-in-r...

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Conn. man asks cops about growing pot, is arrested

2011-02-12T13:11:00.001-08:00

FARMINGTON, Conn. - Police say a Connecticut man called 911 to ask a dispatcher how much trouble he could get into by growing one marijuana plant, then was arrested. Farmington police say a dispatcher told 21-year-old Robert Michelson on Thursday night that he could get arrested for growing pot, and Michelson said thank you and hung up.

Officers went to Michelson's house and seized a small amount of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Michelson has admitted he bought seeds and equipment for growing.

Michelson was released on $5,000 bail after being charged with marijuana possession and other crimes. A woman who answered the phone at his home Friday said he wasn't available for comment.

The Associated Press

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Bldg. Won't be named after Mayor Harry Baals

2011-02-12T13:08:00.001-08:00

No joke: Ex-mayor's name too funny for Ind. center

FORT WAYNE, Ind. - A former Indiana mayor who won four terms in the 1930s and 1950s is proving less popular with modern-day city leaders, who say they probably won't name a new government center for him because of the jokes his moniker could inspire.

Harry Baals is the runaway favorite in online voting to name the new building in Fort Wayne, about 120 miles northeast of Indianapolis. But Deputy Mayor Beth Malloy said that probably won't be enough to put the name of the city's longest-tenured mayor on the center.

The issue is pronunciation. The former mayor pronounced his last name "balls." His descendants have since changed it to "bales."

Supporters said it's unfair that the former mayor can't be recognized simply because his name makes some people snicker. But opponents fear that naming the center after Baals would make Fort Wayne the target of late-night television jokes.

"We realize that while Harry Baals was a respected mayor, not everyone outside of Fort Wayne will know that," Malloy said Tuesday in a statement to The Associated Press. "We wanted to pick something that would reflect our pride in our community beyond the boundaries of Fort Wayne."

An online site taking suggestions for names showed more than 1,000 votes Tuesday for the Harry Baals Government Center. That's more than three times the votes received by the closest contender.

Jim Baals, 51, who has lived in the city his entire life, said it's unfortunate that his great-uncle's name won't be considered for the building.

"Harry served four terms and was a wonderful mayor. I don't know what the problem is," he said. "I understand people are going to poke fun at it. That's OK. I've lived with that name for 51 years now and I've gotten through it. I think everybody else can, too."

City spokesman Frank Suarez said the city has no regrets about opening the name selection up to people online.

"It is a new way of reaching out to the community," he said. "The fact that 17,000 votes have come in tell us the buzz created by this is really good. When was the last time somebody could say they had fun with their government? We've had fun with this."

Suarez told The Journal Gazette that Mayor Tom Henry will meet with local groups and choose from up to 10 finalists from the suggestions submitted. Online voting ends Friday.

---

Online:

http://www.feedbackfortwayne.org/forums/96987-name-our-building

The Associated Press

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Wal-Mart fires man for med marijuana use #mmot

2011-02-12T13:00:00.001-08:00

Judge: Wal-Mart can fire man for med marijuana use

DETROIT - Michigan law legalizing medical marijuana doesn't stop private businesses from firing people for drug use, a federal judge said Friday in dismissing a lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker said the law, approved by voters in 2008, bars authorities from prosecuting people for marijuana use but doesn't tell private employers what to do.

Joseph Casias, 30, was an inventory-control manager at a Walmart in Battle Creek, 50 miles south of Lansing, until he tested positive for marijuana in 2009. He has a medical-marijuana card and smokes pot to alleviate symptoms of an inoperable brain tumor and cancer.

Under Casias' theory of the case, "no private employer in Michigan could take any action against an employee based on an employee's use of medical marijuana," Jonker said. "This would create a new protected employee class in Michigan and mark a radical departure from the general rule of at-will employment."

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Casias, said it would appeal.

"A choice between adequate pain relief and gainful employment is an untenable one that no patient should ever be forced to make," attorney Scott Michelman said.

Wal-Mart said it was pleased with the decision and sympathetic to Casias' medical problems.

"We have to consider the overall safety of our customers and associates, including Mr. Casias," spokesman Greg Rossiter said. "Until further guidance is available, we'll always default to what we believe is the safest environment."

Casias, who was associate of the year at his store in 2008, declined to comment. He remains unemployed, ACLU spokesman Will Matthews said.

By ED WHITE Associated Press

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Man 125 feet from emergency room door, hospital sent an ambulance

2011-02-12T12:58:00.001-08:00

Ore. man dies after hospital tells police call 911

PORTLAND, Ore. - Coughing and unable to sleep, Birgilio Marin-Fuentes drove himself to the hospital after midnight earlier this week, but he crashed his car just shy of his goal.

By the time somebody noticed the accident in the Portland Adventist Medical Center parking garage and told police, about 20 minutes had gone by.

The 61-year-old Cuban immigrant eventually died, leaving his family in grief, police upset, and a congressman requesting an investigation. All are asking why a police officer was told to call 911 for a heart attack victim just outside the hospital door.

Marin-Fuentes had struck a pillar and wall early Thursday morning inside the first level of the garage under an "emergency parking only" sign about 125 feet from the emergency room entrance.

Police say officers Angela Luty and Robert Quick found him unconscious and unresponsive and began cardiopulmonary resuscitation. A third officer, Andrew Hearst, went to the ER intake desk and told them what was happening.

Police say that's when he was told to call the emergency line.

"The officers recognized this man needed medical attention immediately, and two officers began CPR immediately, and a third officer went to ask for assistance, and they were told they had to wait until an ambulance arrived," said Sgt. Pete Simpson, a Portland Police Bureau spokesman.

Judy Leach, a hospital spokeswoman, said emergency room staff was told it was a car crash and they were following the proper protocol by instructing police to summon an ambulance crew.

"With an automobile accident you don't know if the patient needs to be extricated or transported," Leach said Friday. "There are protocols in place to ensure the right thing is done for the right patient at the right time."

She said hospital security officers equipped with a mobile defibrillator were dispatched, and a paramedic went outside to check on the situation.

But Simpson said officers did not receive any medical assistance and were left to fend for themselves until the ambulance arrived and the crew wheeled Marin-Fuentes the short distance to the emergency room aboard a gurney.

"It's a traumatic experience to give CPR and have a person not survive, especially to be that close to a hospital with trained medical personnel right there who could have assisted," Simpson said.

U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer said Friday he has asked the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to conduct an independent investigation to make sure the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act approved in 1986 was followed.

The act requires all Medicare participating hospitals with emergency departments to treat any critically ill patients on their premises, including parking lots, Blumenauer said.

Blumenauer said he was "deeply concerned" about the way the incident was handled and has been in contact with both national and state hospital associations "to make sure everybody gets their signals straight."

Mark McDougal, a Portland attorney representing the family of Marin-Fuentes, said the family was pleased that Blumenauer has asked for a federal investigation.

"It is particularly disturbing that the hospital has given an account which is directly contradicted by the officers at the scene," McDougal said.

Efforts by The Associated Press to reach the victim's wife, Claudia Luis Garcia, on Friday were unsuccessful.

But she told The Oregonian she believes if she had insisted on driving with her husband to the hospital, he might still be alive.

"They left him to die," Luis Garcia said.

By WILLIAM MCCALL Associated Press

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WebOS and SHR dual booted on a Pre

2011-02-01T04:20:00.001-08:00

My article on Precentral.net.

http://www.precentral.net/webos-and-shr-dual-booted-pre

My only question is why? Just to prove it can be done? True, you'd never be able to do that on an iPhone. Only the Pre has this kind of openness and versatility.

Roundup: Apps to help you find more apps.

2011-02-01T04:15:00.001-08:00

My latest article on PreCentral.net. I even made the graphic this time.

http://www.precentral.net/roundup-apps-help-you-find-more-apps

Escaping the Rapids of the Chunky Brown River

2011-01-24T22:36:00.001-08:00

    I stood there, heart racing, clutching a psychotic cat attacking me as I held her, my girlfriend Jennifer shouting to me from across the rapidly broadening brown river, “hurry up! Jump!” I ran and leapt across and just made it far enough to avoid my feet becoming saturated in that water. Were I not obese, this might not have been such a harrowing maneuver, but as it was I nearly didn’t make it across, and almost ended up ankle deep in that shit and piss filled torrent. Though my feet were spared, it is entirely possible that I had already drank and showered in that same sewage filled water hours before without knowing it.
    It all started a couple days before. We were homeless at the time, in the summer of 2004, bouncing around between filthy dive motels on the Berlin Turnpike in central Connecticut with two cats and 41 hamsters in tow, and all our belongings stuffed into my ‘98 Taurus. There were countless motels on that stretch of road, all dilapidated remnants of a bygone era when that was the main thoroughfare into and out of the capital city. None had been maintained or improved since the post World War II economic boom when there was a lot of traffic and a lot of weary travelers passing through. Some looked like they had not been cleaned since then either. Yet oddly enough, none of them allowed pets because they were worried about the messes or damage that a cat might do to a place with 50+ years of stains, dirt and damage. Their “guests” were actually tenants because most of them lived there permanently and were capable of doing far more damage than any animal could ever do even after a bowlful of laxatives. What is even stranger is that the only motels we did find that accepted pets, for the most part, were new and rather nice and actually might have had reason to worry about new stains.
    Why we were stuck with the two cats and the army of rodents is another story entirely but to make it short, the cats had been in my family for 15 years and we were not about to put them up for adoption when at the time we believed our homelessness to be temporary. The hamsters were Jennifer’s and I really do not understand what the deal was with that.
    After much searching we found a place on the southern end of the strip called The Parkway Motel or The Parkway Motor Inn, I don’t remember exactly so I will henceforth refer to it as The Parkway. It was a dive like all the rest but comparably better than many of them and even had a convenience store in front of it, also called The Parkway Something, and that certainly made things easier for motel dwellers like us. A nice young girl working in the office who was, of course, Indian or Pakistani, told us they would take pets and the weekly rate was reasonable so we took it and were quite pleased since we thought the money we had would not be enough.
    As a side note, it is not a stereotype that motel owners are all Indians or Pakistanis. It is an absolutely indisputable fact as scientifically provable as saying that the sun is hot. We either stayed in or shopped dozens of motels up and down that strip, plus a few on the shoreline of Connecticut and even some in Ohio, and all but two of them were owned and staffed by Indians or Pakistanis. All the ones I talked to were Indians. Even the other two may have been owned by Indians, as I found out one that was staffed by Americans actually was also Indian owned.
    Our room at The Parkway was pretty big, with a view of the most awful, horror movie reminiscent trailer park I have ever seen. There was a mirror all down one of the walls for a reason I cannot imagine. If it were on the ceiling it might have made sense. We had told the office we had one cat so we smuggled in the other cat and all six cages of hamsters and a few boxes of our stuff so we would have a back seat in the car again. We were sharing the room with another couple because we did not have enough money to pay for the room ourselves. The girl was pretty nice, and normal, the guy was another story in himself. His name was Paulie, and his sister was my ex girlfriend. He was a user, a backstabber, and just all sorts of bad and irresponsible. We had no choice but to tolerate him. It was that or sleep in the car.
    We were in this room for two days, maybe three. The first night, I said something that made Jennifer burst out laughing while she was eating Taco Hell, and she choked and puked all over the floor. That was certainly not the first stain on that carpet but a major catastrophe later on would make it a moot point. We had a good night though, it was our first night alone together. Paulie and his girlfriend stayed elsewhere that night.
    The next day, we were eating supper in the room again and drank some of the tap water. We both agreed it tasted funny and we ended up buying something to drink at The Parkway store. A couple hours after that, I took a shower and the drain backed up. The water that backed up was clear but there were floaties in it that looked something like undigested spinach. Why I was not alarmed by that I don’t remember. But I got out of the shower in a hurry nonetheless. I took a dump, no plumbing problems there. But then later I went in there and if I remember right, there was no water in the toilet. I flushed it to refill it but the toilet clogged. So I called the office to ask for a plunger.
    The family who owned the motel, I should mention, lived in a house connected to the office. It had a great big window with no curtains so you could see the well furnished and decorated dining room and as you walked into your filthy shithole of a room, you could see how well they were living on your money. The whole family worked the office at different times and at this time, it was the teenage son.
    So I go to the office and the kid gives me a plunger, which does no good. So I call back and tell them the toilet is broken and we need it fixed. Now an older guy, maybe in his 30’s or 40’s comes in, skinny and third worldly looking. He tries to fix the toilet to no avail and blames the problem on us. He calls in the mother, who is the queen bitch of the whole brood and this is when the proverbial shit hits the fan, not the shit coming up out of the shower drain.
    The bitch comes down and right away starts yelling at us. She claims that they don’t take pets and had no idea we were there with two cats. They never did notice the stack of hamster cages hidden under the blanket. She claims the cats were swimming in the toilet and their hair clogged it. Yes I’m serious, that’s actually what she said.
    The arguing got worse and worse. Voices were raising louder and louder on both sides. The bitch claimed that the girl we described who had rented us the room and told us pets were allowed did not exist. The girl had not written pets on the receipt, if she even gave us one, I don’t remember. Queen Bitch called Jennifer a liar and called her some name, I don’t remember what it was. Jennifer clenched her fist, ready to deck her, and I yelled something along the lines of, ‘don’t fuckin call her a...’ whatever the insult was. So the Indian bitch, whose English was as bad as her personality shouted back, “you call me fuck! We done!” To that, we started laughing and to this day, we still occasionally quote that classic line. But after that, Fuck, as I shall now call her, stormed off back to the office and told us we had to get out and we would only get part of our money back.
    The problem with the money was the difference between a weekly and a daily rate. If you pay for a week at once, you pay less than you would if you paid by the day and stayed there all week. I don’t remember the amounts at The Parkway at that time but I think it was around $45 a day. So if you paid the daily rate, you would pay around $300 for the week. But if you paid the weekly rate up front, it was about $250. We only had $125 so we split the bill with the other couple and I think I borrowed some money from somewhere for food and gas for the week. So when Fuck kicked us out, that meant we had only stayed there two days and she would charge us the daily rate. This meant she would keep $90 and give us back $160, which of course we had to split with the other couple. This meant we would not have enough to pay for another motel for the week and would be stuck sleeping in the car with two cats and 41 hamsters for at least a couple days and they would all have to sit out there in the car while I was at work. I’m not sure where Paulie and his girlfriend would have gone. I may not be remembering the days correctly either, we may even have been there three days, which means we would have gotten back even less money.
    Right before this happened, Paulie rolled up with a bag of beer right about the end of the argument. He didn’t contribute to our argument but brought the beer into our room. Paulie was under 21 and so was Jennifer, but I was 26. This meant when the cops showed up, I would be responsible for having underage people in a room with alcohol. They were both 20 so at least they weren’t minors but it still would have meant trouble for me.
    After Fuck stormed back to the office, Paulie in all his misguided and powerfully stupid wisdom, decided to go to the office and try to make things right. I didn’t know he was going to do this. All I knew was about five minutes later he ran back into the room and said he had threatened to kill all them “Indian fuckers” and so Fuck had called the police. He said he had a warrant out for a failure to appear or some such misdemeanor so he was out of there. He left the bag of beer in the room. So now I had the police on the way, a bag of booze in the room with a girl not old enough to drink, all thanks to Paulie, and I had to figure out where we were going to sleep.
    I ran out and brought the beer to the car and went to the office. The teenage kid told me that they had called the police and cancelled the help call because Paulie left. I told him that we would not have enough money for another room for the week and that we did not clog the toilet. He kept saying there would be a lot of damage (though neither of us yet knew how much there would end up being) and somebody had to pay for it, which of course I reiterated that it had nothing to do with us. I implored him to work with us and I have to say, he seemed to believe me and genuinely sympathize with our situation. He said Fuck gets mad a lot but that they are good people and he would talk to her for us. She had said we could stay the night and had given us a different room, a far more dilapidated room. So we had until morning to figure out what to do and in the meantime, when she cooled off, he would talk to her.
    After my talk with the nice young man, we were sitting in the room despondent and in somewhat of a state of shock at how quickly our lives had been turned upside down, at least for the next few days. Then we heard a bubbling sound that rose in pitch. It was the same sort of sound you would hear when filling up a bottle and it makes that bubbling sound as it gets to the mouth of the bottle. I went and looked in the bathroom and the toilet had instantly filled with water and was now pouring over the sides in a waterfall. I don’t mean just water spilling over the sides, I mean a rapidly gushing waterfall, a little Niagra Falls of chunky brown water. The bathroom floor flooded even as I stood there watching it.
    We were now racing to get all our stuff packed up as fast as possible. We were rushing like the place was on fire. We had to move boxes of stuff, pack up our suitcases, haul out six cages of hamsters and round up two skittish cats. By the time we finally got everything packed, the shit flow was now a river flowing across the floor. We had to jump over it every time we had to run something out of the room, up the stairs and down the corridor to the new room, and that was many, many trips.
    When we finally had everything hauled up to the new room, the river was now a foot to two feet wide and was flowing as fast as you might see water running down the road in a rain storm. There were chunks of brown floating down like little whitewater rafting expeditions. We now had to get the two cats out of there, who were spooked and had crawled under the bed. I tried and tried to coax them out but when they refused, I got aggravated and started yelling at them so now they climbed up inside the box spring. I had to move the side table out of way, then lift up the king size mattress and lean it against the wall, then lift the box spring off the frame. I then had to reach up inside to grab each cat and drag it out of there. Even though I had grown up with these cats, they had loved me and cuddled with me since I was a kid, they now acted like they were terrified of me and attacked. Each one went berserk in my arms, scratching and clawing and trying to escape. I had to take them one at a time, gripping them by the neck and holding them away from my body while they tried to kill me. By now, the brown river was so wide I could barely jump across it and it was deep enough to soak my foot if I landed in it. I barely did make it across with each one. My shoes were wet and brown but thankfully, my feet stayed dry.
    Later that night, we walked by the room and saw a puddle outside the door where it had seeped out underneath. The next day, there was a whole team of Indians in there cleaning, including the mysterious pet allowing girl that Fuck claimed did not exist.
    When I talked to Fuck in the office, she said we could stay the rest of the week in the new, more dilapidated room. She said they didn’t usually rent that room out because it was so unpleasant and were planning on fixing it up anyway, so we could stay there with our animals but had to leave the next week. She admitted that the plumber told her the reason the toilet backed up was because they hadn’t had the septic tank pumped in so many years that it simply overflowed back up the pipes and we happened to be unlucky enough to be directly above it. Other rooms had complained of clogged toilets too but none had exploded into the room the way ours did. She would not apologize but she was polite and we avoided the office for the rest of the week.
    I still don’t know why the water tasted funny but I didn’t get E. Coli or the Hershey squirts so I like to assume that the funny taste was from bad city water, not the ass juice of countless transients.

Why do people think low paying jobs are always hiring and hire everybody?

2011-01-24T22:20:00.001-08:00

Why do the truly ignorant believe that just because a place offers a low
wage, that means they're always hiring, have limitless room for more and
more employees, and will hire anyone? I know that financial well being
has removed any grip on reality they might once have had, but you would
think the never ending news reports of record high unemployment and
people on food stamps might give them a clue.

If you go in any retail establishment (except maybe the ones who cater
to the wealthy, like anything expensive), and ask if they are hiring,
they all give you the same answer: no and in fact we're cutting back. On
top of that, when you consider there are now more people unemployed and
in the job market than there has been in decades, and what you have are
full work forces at every place you go and no room for more. Plus with
so many people begging for every job, they can afford to be choosy about
who they hire more so now than ever before.

The people they are hiring are not the countless out of work college
graduates either. They are afraid to invest the time and money into
hiring and training a person they know will leave as soon as a better
job comes along. Sometimes they also think that these people feel the
work is beneath them and will have an attitude. A friend of mine who
runs a restaurant told me himself that when choosing between a high
school kid and a person with a degree, he will almost always hire the
high schooler. A manager at a company I used to work for who did the
hiring for another department that paid far less than I was making, told
me she won't even call a person with an education for an interview. So
in a sense, I actually hurt myself more than help by getting a degree.

I know people with money are out of touch, but if you think all you have
to do to get a job is walk into a place that sells hamburgers then
you're just as stupid as you think the burger flippers are.

Life is what it makes of you, not what you make of it

2011-01-16T17:37:00.000-08:00

Whoever coined the phrase 'life is what you make of it' had a life of opportunity and clearly looked down on the people who were less fortunate. Translated into plain, non-metaphorical English, this means simply that the poor only got that way because they are lazy and stupid and that everyone who is rich earned it because they are superior people. It is a way of justifying mistreatment and unfair compensation of low wage workers, keeping the poor segregated from the 'better' people, and a way of disguising racism as tough love. It does not even consider people who are born into wealth, or born into poverty, or the uncontrollable twists of fate that are not 'made' by anyone, such as disease or accidental dismemberment. It is used by well meaning people as a motivational proverb too, not just racist snobs, but nevertheless it is a viciously cruel, nonsensical insult, that should disappear from our vernacular, especially in this era of economic depression.

Of course there are examples of people whose life actually is what they made of it. There are certainly people who could have achieved more in life if they had worked harder, those whose own pessimistic, self pitying way of thinking has led them to never make any attempts at bettering themselves. There are alcoholics and drug addicts and gamblers and spendthrifts and all manner of irresponsible people who have ruined their own lives. There are just plain bad people whose misdeeds gave them a life in a cage or worse. No one would dispute this fact. Of course, succeeding in life does require a lot of hard work, for most of us at least. But do any of these people really need you to pass judgement on them and remind them that they have made a lot of mistakes? You have made a lot of mistakes too, do you need someone who feels they are better than you to point them out?

So while this ridiculous figure of speech does apply to some people, try to say ‘life is what you make of it’ to the guy who worked his whole life at a respectable job in a factory only to lose his livelihood because the company can pay Mexicans half as much money to do the same work and NAFTA makes it cost effective to move the whole operation south of the border. Tell the veteran who worked his body to its limits to excel and advance in his military career, only to lose his legs to a roadside bomb in his first tour of duty that he made his life what it is. Go up to the guy who is paralyzed from the neck down because his horse was spooked by a rat and threw him off onto his head that if he just puts his mind to it, he can do anything he wants. It is certainly true that there other things these people can do, and their lives are far from over. But the status of their lives has nothing to do with what they made of it.

Most of the time I see this supposedly inspirational insight being said, it is being said to people who are lamenting their lives or the lives of others. It is said to people complaining about their dead end jobs, their bad living conditions, their unemployment. Or it is simply posted as a Facebook or Twitter status for the shallow to masquerade as deep and philosophical. It is almost always said by people who are happy with their lives to people who are not. It is a way of telling people, “I don’t feel sorry for you and I’m not going to help you because your problems are your own fault and you deserve everything you get.”

It is said to justify not tipping a waitress when your friend tells you that you should. It is said when minorities talk about the tough life in the ghetto or as an excuse to keep them from sending their kids to white suburban schools. It is said by soulless Conservatives who are paranoid that their precious tax money, that they feel they should not have to pay, might be given to someone who needs it. It is said in countless other situations to disguise hateful and politically incorrect statements.

I realize of course that it may also be said by guidance counselors or well meaning friends. But why not just say something like, “you are a talented kid and you have a better chance of succeeding in what you want to do if you work hard and be a good person,” or “you’re a strong person and I know you can get through this.” There are ways to encourage people without insulting them.

This expression is not inspirational, it is an arrogant statement of superiority and it is insulting and degrading to the people to whom it is said. Please, in the future, keep it to yourself. Thankfully, no one has yet said this to me.

My college education is paying off: I got an interview at a fast food place!

2010-12-03T18:50:00.000-08:00

The sad thing is, this may not be just a joke. I got calls for interviews this week from a supermarket, a department store and now the fast food place. I have applied at all of these places before. At least once at the fast food place, three times at the department store and twice at the supermarket. All in the past year and a half since I lost my job. I never got a single call for an interview until now; two months after I completed my Associates Degree. So it may just be that none of these jobs that pay $8 an hour or less and offer little or no benefits wanted me until I had a degree. By the way I should also mention that super market promptly sent me a rejection letter the day after my interview and the department store, who promised to call and let me know either way by the end of the week, have not yet called five days later. So it seems you need a degree to work in low paying jobs and even then you have to be the creme of the educated crop.

Microsoft licenses Palm patents to stay out of the patent-infringement-lawsuit craze

2010-10-09T11:32:00.000-07:00

Image by ilamont.com via Flickr
Microsoft recently took action to keep itself out of the patent infringement lawsuit frenzy that has been sweeping through the tech industry like the latest fad in a posh high school. The tech behemoth has licensed 74 Palm patents in a move that is logical yet seems to escape the collective minds of executives at all of Microsoft's biggest competitors.

The patents relate to basic smart phone technology and were licensed from Acacia Research Corp. and Access Co. Ltd., a Japanese company that in 2005 bought PalmSource, who was behind the Palm OS that made Treos king of the smart phone market in Palm's glory days. Some of these very same patents are already involved in a pending lawsuit Acacia filed in march in federal court in Tyler, Texas against Apple, RIM, Samsung, Motorola and other smart phone makers. The tech company that is notably NOT mentioned in that lawsuit is Microsoft.

'By focusing on efficiently licensing patented innovations from other companies, we're free to develop great software and we're able to provide our partners and customers [intellectual property] peace-of-mind,' said David Kaefer, general manager of intellectual property and licensing at Microsoft.

There are so many patents currently in the court system between the big tech companies, and centering around smart phones, that it is not even worth it to break them down here. It is worth noting that all the companies have been involved in patent suits, and most have both been sued as well as suing others.

What is interesting is that according to The Wall Street Journal, Acacia is 'a company that specializes in licensing intellectual property on behalf of rightsholders at universities and other companies—and often suing those companies that refuse such deals.'
Also interesting to me is that the company that is the loudest whiner in the 'you stole my idea' fad, is Apple. Yet they too have been sued for infringing on patents.

If you look at Palm's patents, technically no smart phone has the right to exist without Palm's say so. Palm has a patent on idea of a PDA integrated with a phone, which is what all smart phones are. There are also several other Palm patents that cover the basic operation of a smart phone.

In reality, I think all tech companies steal ideas from each other. They take their competition's innovations and build and improve upon them. I am not so sure that is a bad thing. That's the spirit of competition and it keeps our gadgets in a continual state of improvement. Of course it is bad for the company whose innovations are made to look obsolete by a competitor's improvement on it. But that company's innovation was likely based upon another. It is a vicious cycle but I personally think the consumer gains a lot from it, and I do not think the tech companies really lose as much as they claim to.

Source: Wall Street Journal Online article

Ping: Apple's new social network is the Genius "Feature" rebranded

2010-09-04T19:48:00.000-07:00

I have used Apple's new integrated iTunes social network for five minutes and already I think it's useless junk. Here are several reasons why you shouldn't waste your time.

It's just another gimmick to get you to buy music like the Genius "feature."
I won't buy music from iTunes. I refuse to pay Apple extra money to remove the restrictions from music I paid for that has no business being there in the first place. I can buy the same song with no DRM shackles from Amazon or any of a number of other music stores for less money. The two songs I did buy from Apple with the DRM, will not play on either of my computers even though it says it is authorized on both. It's not even worth the aggravation of going through their pain in the ass tech support for iTunes to get it fixed.
If my friends, let alone strangers, care what music I like, they'll look on my Facebook profile or just ask me.
I searched for Blues Traveler and it couldn't even find it. There's no excuse for that. They sell Blues Traveler's music in the iTunes store! How, in the name of the Holy Lord Jobs could iTunes possibly be confused by that?! It's like going into a bakery and picking up Wonder Bread from their shelf, and having the checkout clerk go "what's this?" If it was an obscure band I could understand it but Blues Traveler has had a few hits. Besides, like I said, they sell Blues Traveler's music in the very same store that claims to not know what it is. Yes, I checked my spelling. Not like it's a complicated phrase. Blues Traveler was the only thing I searched for and then I just left in disgust.
I'm not going to take the time to search for all my music just to rate it and/or review it.
There's no real interaction with other people, other than seeing what they listen to. That's not social networking.

You don't need an app to use Google Voice on your phone

2010-08-31T15:14:00.000-07:00

Image via CrunchBase
   Google Voice is the best thing to happen to phones since they went wireless. But Google itself, ever the overbearing parent, decided to break its little miracle for us savvy enough to own WebOS devices. Yet despite the tragic death of Gdial Pro, and the anguished cries of users on Precentral, there is still a way to use Google Voice (GV) with almost the convenience of an app.
    The important thing to remember is that when somebody sends a text message to your GV number, you can simply reply to it like any other text message and it will come from your GV number. Of course when they call you, all you have to do is answer it. So this means that the only problem is initiating conversation. All Gdial Pro did was give you an on-device interface to initiate those conversations. You can accomplish the same thing with the GV web app.
    Remember that epic battle between the tyrannical dictator of Apple and the rebel Google over the GV app on iPhone? Lord Jobs ultimately won that battle but Google created a web app instead that functions pretty much the same way the app would have. That web app works the same way on the Pre. All you have to do is load up the web browser, navigate to http://www.google.com/voice, then click the application menu in the top left, tap “Page” then “Add to Launcher.” Once you do that, it will pop up a box where you type in what you want to name it and tap the “Add to Launcher” button and voila, Google Voice app in your launcher. Use this to initiate conversations and you can use your GV number the same way you did before.
    This is not as easy as typing a contact name in Universal Search and tapping the SMS button, but it functions precisely the same way as Gdial Pro did. Sure it doesn’t have all the features of Gdial Pro, nor the integration into other areas of WebOS, but it will get the job done and allow you to use your GV number as your primary number.
    So no more crying kids, the candy may not be as sweet but the shop has not closed.

Poker Drops for the Palm Pre and Pixi

2010-08-31T14:01:00.000-07:00

One of the Pre’s greatest strengths is its ability to push polygons in Playstation 1 quality 3D games. These games are just as immersive and addicting on the small screen as they are on the, well various size screens. Only a few years ago cell phone games were simple diversions, hardly more engaging than Pong. The Pre and the Jesus Phone have changed the way we think of mobile games. Sometimes though, the most addicting, and valuable games are the simplistic ones with simple graphics like Poker Drops from Gobico Games. http://www.precentral.net/app-gallery/app-catalog/poker-drops

Poker Drops is something like Boggle with playing cards. You are given a grid of playing cards and you must make poker hands by drawing a line connecting adjacent cards in either vertical, horizontal, diagonal or zig zagging lines. Each time you make a hand, those cards disappear and new cards drop in from the top. You keep making hands as fast as you can until the time runs out, racking up as many points as you can. Obviously you get more points for bigger and better hands.
Poker Drops is surprisingly addicting. I couldn’t put it down for the first whole day I had it and every time I have a few moments of boredom, I load it up. Graphically it’s not stunning but it’s an attractive interface, and you can change the theme to one of several built in. You can also customize the rules to make your game easier or harder, quicker or longer. There are also many “Trophies” to unlock, similar to Achievements on Xbox Live. The Trophies range from near impossible feats of astonishing awesomeness, to epic fails so bad they’re noteworthy. The problem with it is that as far as I can tell, there's no way to share those achievements over Facebook and Twitter.

   The game can be a bit laggy at times. Sometimes it takes a few seconds to animate your move and you end up thinking that it hasn’t registered so you try the move again. The problem with this is that sometimes it actually did not register your move and you spend precious seconds waiting to find out. Then other times you find out it did in fact register the move and you waste seconds trying to do it again.
   The value of games like this are that you can play it in those short moments while you wait in line at the DMV, on your break at work, or while sitting on the throne. The games that make your eyes fall in love take a little longer to load up and generally are more lengthy gaming sessions. Especially considering I get a too many cards error and have to reboot my phone every time I try to play a 3D game, I really can’t jump in and back out of those games quickly when I’m stealing a few moments.
       Poker Drops’ creator Dave Balmer also created Wobble Words, which is the same game with words instead of playing cards. He now works for Palm in their Mojo SDK development team. http://www.precentral.net/gobico-games-developer-joins-palms-sdk-team Get it for only $2.

Ghost story: Objects Moving on Their Own Part 1

2010-08-15T19:36:00.000-07:00

This will be the first of a few posts about the experiences I’ve had with the other side. I have always kept these stories to myself because people would think I’m crazy. Now I don’t give a shit anymore. If there’s one person among all my Twitter and Facebook friends who believes in it and can relate to my experiences and it gets us talking about it, then it’s worth it. If you don’t believe in it, that’s your own problem and when it happens to you some day, you’re going to feel like an ass for doubting it. Besides nowadays, most people believe in it and half the people out there have had some kind of experience themselves.

When I was 8 and 9 in the mid 1980's we lived in a haunted house. It was at 42 Seaside Avenue, Westbrook, CT. We all had crazy experiences there from hearing noises to seeing things move on their own. We even got a couple pictures. I’ll start with a story that’s the hardest to explain away and actually the least scary thing that happened to me there.

Parts of the house were built around 1830 and the rest had been added on in the 20th century some time. The older parts of the house was where most things happened. Not all, but most of them. Our bedrooms, unfortunately were all in the old part of the house. I was always scared to be in that part by myself so I kept my bedroom door open as far as it could go. There was no perpendicular wall like there usually is in a bedroom so the door would swing all they way around parallel to the door frame. The door actually rested up against the wall next to the door frame so to close, it had to swing a complete 180 degrees around. This gave me some small comfort.

One night my mother and I were sitting on my bed talking. I had the door all the way open as I always did, up against the wall. The window was closed. We started hearing people whispering in the room with us and stopped talking. The door then slowly swung around by itself. We watched it swing all the way around and close. The doorknob turned when the door closed, as if someone was trying to do it quietly. When the door was closed, the knob turned back and then it locked from inside the room. We saw the lock turn on the knob by itself right in front of us.
My mother got up and went out of the room to see if either of my brothers were out there, even though there’s no way they could have turned invisible to close the door and turn the knob and lock it from inside the room. They were all out in another part of the house nowhere near us.

Limbo

2010-08-14T00:16:00.001-07:00

Check out this video game!

Limbo

Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters "Limbo." This summer, experience his journey -- through a world media are calling hauntingly beautiful and philosophically provocative -- in this Independent Games Festival award-winning title.

Sent from my iPod

Franklin Park Conservatory

2010-06-06T16:39:00.001-07:00

This slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Three articles that prove the iPhone isn't worth wasting money on yet

2009-07-21T15:09:00.000-07:00

Image by six steps  via Flickr

http://www.sharetabs.com/y6a

Ever since the iPhone first came out, I have been a very vocal opponent. I even railed against it in a blog entry I posted on my Myspace and my Funformobile page. I won't repost it here because it's very outdated. However, my attitude about the iPhone itself has changed and I now very much want one. But I am still a vocal advocate against doing so.

The biggest reason I railed against it for so long was because it couldn't do any of the things that modern cell phones do. It even lacked many features that freebie phones offer. Yet it cost as much as a computer when it came out. But the press still called it an "innovator" while it was a decade behind the times in technology. Bloggers and reporters raved about its features as if they'd never heard of it before, even though smartphones had been doing it since the 90's. Millions of blissfully ignorant people lined up in droves to pay the price for a computer and get a phone that didn't do anything but make calls and go to web pages. You couldn't even download apps and games on it. Even the hardware features on it were very basic(i.e. the sub par camera, lack of a memory card slot, no upgradeable battery, etc.).

On top of all this, it was locked down under Apple's Nazi like control they maintain over all their hardware, despite the hundreds or thousands of dollars you spent to make it yours. Explaining this would require a whole new blog entry, but if you do some research, you'll see what I mean.

It was unbelievable that a company would make a phone so lacking in everything and shocking that so many people were dumb enough to buy it, let alone at such jaw dropping prices. It's a phenomenon I will never understand.

Image by Johnny Vulkan via Flickr

So all this supposed revolution in technology was really good for was using it as a basic, no frills phone. Yet on AT&T's network, it was barely even able to do that. Lots of phone manufacturers put in the time and effort to make quality products and yet were edged out by a corporate giant that half assed its way through its first foray into the market. This, coupled with the arrogance iPhone users exhibited, just infuriated me. It was exemplary of the way people will mindlessly follow each other like zombie cattle, do foolish things just to be trendy, and believe without question every morsel of biased and untrue data the media spoon feeds them then spew it back out as fact.

While this is admittedly off topic, I can state from two years of personal experience that what you read and hear in the media is rarely completely true. No matter how true the information may have started out, it still has to go through a human filter before it reaches the printed page or the airwaves. In most cases, it goes through a few filters. All writers put their own slant on stories even if they do not intend to. It's an inevitable part of human nature. After the writer puts his flavor on it, the editor adds some exaggerated or half true sensationalism to it before you ever see it. So all those reporters who were so excited about their new iPhone, raved about it to the masses who gobbled it up as fact and believed it even after they learned of the phone's short comings.

However, all of this has changed now. With the release of the two subsequent versions of the iPhone, Apple has brought the device into the current decade. The new 3Gs still lacks some of the things smartphones have been doing for years, but it now has most of them and all of the most important ones. So it is now finally a device that meets most of the basic requirements to be called a smartphone, even for a tech geek like me. Even the price is now reasonable.

However, it is still not a device worth your money for several reasons. Most of all is AT&T's pathetic service. If you click the link above, you'l read three articles that explain just the tip of the iceberg of problems that people have had trying to use the iPhone as a phone. Ever since day one there have been vocal complaints about it. I know two people personally with iPhones that can't even get through a call without it dropping. One of them switched to Boost Mobile, where even on the outdated iDen network he has better coverage. The iPhone does not function adequately as a phone, which is its primary purpose despite everything else you can do with it. With AT&T, you'll pay more for service on this thing than you would on a phone that actually works. Plus, those great new features that finally bring it into modern times such as tethering and MMS, won't work on AT&T's network. So your new iPhone 3Gs that you're paying extra to not use as a phone, won't even do what it's capable of.

The next big reason it's a pointless waste of money to invest in an iPhone is the iPod Touch. The Touch is an iPhone without the useless phone radio in it. It will run any and all iPhone apps and looks identical because it is. It's the exact same hardware. It is lacking the camera, but rumor has it there will be a version of it this fall with a camera. So as long as you've got a wifi connection and the iPhone 3.0 software update on your Touch, you've got an iPhone. You'll pay about as much up front for the Touch as you would an iPhone and then you own it outright. There's no two year contract to fulfill for it be considered yours and no monthly service fee. You can spend that money on a Windows Mobile phone on a CDMA network (CDMA has much faster data speeds and far better coverage) and run an app called "Walking Hotspot" that uses your phone's data connection and puts up a portable personal wifi hotspot. So with that, you can use your Touch online anywhere you are. Then you have a working phone and all the goodness of an iPhone. So for less money, you get everything the iPhone gives you, plus all the thousands of Windows Mobile apps out there. You in fact get more for the money because then you have a working phone and when you're playing on your iPod, you don't have to be interrupted by calls or messages. (If you're on an internet app on the Touch you will be interrupted by calls however, becasue CDMA carriers won't allow you to be on a voice call and a data connection at the same time)

So in its present form, there is no practical reason to waste money getting an iPhone. It just isn't necessary or practical. In a year or more, there will be a version of the iPhone on Verizon. Then you can have an iPhone and a phone combined into one unit and a reliable network to run it on. In the meantime, an iPod Touch and a phone works just as well. Many people say that means carrying two devices, which they don't want to do. I consider this a good thing actually but then again, I'm a tech geek. I have also found since getting my iPod Touch five months ago that over time I use my phone less and less and my Touch more and more. Even for features that are duplicated on both devices, I like doing them more on the iPod. So there are two schools of thought on that and both are right, but the way AT&T is, carrying a phone and a Touch is the only option that's practical and user friendly.

In conclusion, I will concede that the hardware and apps on the iPhone/iPod Touch are light years superior to anything else on the market. The touch screen is remarkably sensitive, the hardware feels solid and is actually built out of metal and glass (though this is expensive to repair) and the apps and games on it are far beyond anything I ever expected to see on a phone for many years. The hardware on the 3Gs is up to par now and ordinarily would be the best choice of phones out there. But AT&T's network is a deal breaker. In terms of being an innovator, there is only thing that the iPhone changed about technology: phone manufacturers are now afraid to make a phone that isn't touch screen. It's debatable if this is a positive change.

The ceiling is falling!

2009-05-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

They're working on the roof and ventilation system at work. This just fell out of the ceiling. Good thing nobody was sitting there. Scared the crap out of everybody.

FW: this is pretty good How to instantly fail a DUI

2009-05-11T08:52:00.000-07:00

One of the funniest drunks I’ve ever seen.

Maintain Your Mac With This All in One Utility Tool (Mac Only)

2009-04-13T00:53:00.001-07:00

Sent to you via Google Reader

Maintain Your Mac With This All in One Utility Tool (Mac Only)

Even though the Mac runs more smoothly and more stable compared to Windows – thanks to its stable UNIX core - it still needs maintenance nonetheless. Most of the time, the main maintenance processes are done automatically in the background and in the time when most of the users are not using it – a.k.a. in the middle of the night.

Your Mac is also the kind of machine which can go on fine for ages without the need for rebooting. My Mac's last reboot was three weeks ago when I installed a few software updates. So, the maintenance arrangement seems logical.

But if you are the kind of person who can't leave the machine without turning it off, or if your machine is in the office where the rules require you to turn it off every time you leave it, your Mac might have missed several maintenance schedules, and the cumulative effects could cause several glitches.

In the rare cases where the automatic maintenance schedule fails, you are advised to do it manually. However, one of the alternative applications that can help you is MainMenu.

Upon installation, this small app – about 1.4MB in size - will reside in your menubar above next to the clock and other tools like Bluetooth and Airport status. From this menubar icon, you can access MainMenu's menus.

The first thing you would want to do is to go to the "Preferences"

and choose "General". Make sure that the "Start MainMenu automatically when I log in" box is checked. This will make sure that it will always be available for you to use.

You can choose what kind of menubar icon you want to use from the "Appearance" tab.

The "Log Window" tab gives you options to display the log window and set the hotkey.

"Batch Tasks" might be the most important tab of all. Here you can choose what tasks need to be done when you choose "Execute Batch Task" (Command + R).

There are two main groups here: the tasks that need no restart after executed and the tasks that do. But it seems the developer has saved the...

Sent from my iPod

Giz Explains: Why OS X Shrugs off Viruses Better Than Windows - Gizmodo Australia

2009-03-08T16:41:00.001-07:00

Giz Explains: Why OS X Shrugs Off Viruses Off Better Than Windows - Gizmodo Australia

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Your online reputation can hurt your job search - USATODAY.com

2009-02-19T23:23:00.001-08:00

USATODAY.com:

Your online reputation can hurt your job search
http://usat.me/?34193642

To view the story, click the link or paste it into your browser.

Sent from my iPod

I can relate to this personally. A few months ago, the former HR director went snooping on me and found my Myspace page that I never use. I have lots of incriminating stuff on there but none of it bothered her. She tried to get me fired over a two year old blog post I wrote about how crooked Cingular was when I ran a Cingular store. Fortunately the owners laughed at it but imagine what that stupid Myspace post could've cost me.

New Record: Mac OS X Running 200 Apps Keeps the Race Going

2009-02-03T06:50:00.001-08:00

New Record: Mac OS X Running 200 Apps Keeps the Race Going

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Red Sox catcher pays price for not understanding business of baseball - BloggingStocks

2009-01-25T18:00:00.001-08:00

Red Sox catcher pays price for not understanding business of baseball - BloggingStocks

Posted using ShareThis

Yankee's Future looks to be more of the same

2008-12-23T21:11:00.001-08:00

I posted this on CBSSportsline.com recently. The composition is a little sloppy but I get my points across.
Yankee's Future looks big - CBSSports.com Message Boards http://www.sportsline.com/mcc/messages/thread/12488317

Nathan Mylott sent this using ShareThis.

Teacher confiscates Linux discs, says there's no such thing as free software

2008-12-10T23:21:00.001-08:00

Blog of helios: Linux - Stop holding our kids back

Posted using ShareThis

This is hysterical and yet tragic and an outrage all at the same time. A middle school teacher confiscated Linux disks from a student and wrote a letter to the nonprofit group that supplied the kid with his laptop and OS. The charity gives laptops to kids that would never otherwise be able to get one. They give put Linux on the machines because it's free and better than Windows. This teacher actually wrote an angry letter to the nonprofit yelling at them for not giving the kids Windows and says she's going to press charges against him for distributing free software.

I was laughing hysterically at how stupid she was and how perfectly she epitomizes the ignorant Windows "lover". She actually says there's no such thing as free software and that if they put an older version of Windows on the laptops, that's the only way they'd be useable.

I love this line, "I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over stated." She sounds like she's talking about drugs.

Click the link above to read her email and nonprofit's response. Funny stuff.

I am a social networking whore

2008-12-09T23:33:00.000-08:00

I've come to fully realize recently the extent to which I have become a technology geek. I've always loved computers and cell phones and video games but lately my addiction to anything new (to me) that uses technology in any kind of a novel way has shown me that I am the epitome of the techie. I use technology just because I can and somehow manage to defeat its purpose of simplifying life and actually complicating it. As my girlfriend stared at me in wonder and only mouthed the word "wow" as I explained the problem I was trying to solve on the computer, it ocurred to me that this is a good case study. It's a study of addiction of over indulgence and a good example of the kind of guy I am. Image via CrunchBase, source unknown

In the last few months I've finally begun to explore social networking. A couple years of technology glitches and no actual social activity on Myspace had soured me on the whole idea. But when a nosey HR manager searched the net to dig up dirt on everybody at work and tried to have me fired for a blog post dissing Cingular from two years ago, and after I agreed to take my page down, I went the opposite way out of spite. Now I'm a social media addict.
Image via CrunchBase, source unknown
I started up on Facebook and I like this a lot better. Now I have a lot of friends and post a lot of good stuff to my Facebook page. So then I finally got around to exploring Friend Feed and Twitter. Then before I knew it, I had four blogs on Blogger, a Twine account (that I haven't yet used), a Hordit account, an Oosah account, sharing articles on Google Reader, a public Skitch page, two different apps on my phone to post to all these places, a Funformobile page, Twhirl on my desktop to monitor Twitter and Friendfeed, Digsby widgets on all my pages, Retaggr widgets on all my pages, a Plaxo page, a Plaxo email signature and a Retaggr email signature. Holy shit.

So anyway, the other day I'm posting to Twitter for the ONE person that's following me on Twitter. This person, btw, is also following me on Friend Feed so I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea to make all my Friend Feed posts automatically replicate themselves on Twitter, but more on that in a minute. Image via CrunchBase, source unknown

So I noticed that all my Twitter tweets were repeating themselves. Every time I posted to Twitter, the same tweet would post itself again a few mminutes later with a link on it. So I click on the link and it takes me to my Friend Feed. Well after spending considerable time trying to figure out why Friend Feed and Twitter are misbehaving, it dawns on me. I have a Facebook app that sets my Twitter tweets as my Facebook status automatically. So every time I'd post a tweet, it would become my Facebook status, which would then post to Friend Feed, which would then post back to Twitter. Look at the daisy chain of networks I created. Image via CrunchBase, source unknown

I couldn't figure out how to disable the Facebook app so I stopped the Facebook status updates going to Friend Feed. Well now, all my Friend Feed posts are still going to Twitter so they're becoming my Facebook status. So every time I flag an article on Google Reader, post a cool page on Facebook or Friend Feed, or post a blog entry or pretty much anything else, it becomes my Facebook status. So when I posted a great new cell phone app called Boopsie, my Facebook status was set to, "Boopsie" followed by a link.

So this is a good couple days now I've spent just trying to figure out what link to snip in this forever looping chain I've created to stop the vicious cycle of repeats.

The ironic part is, I have no idea if anyone is even reading any of this stuff I have posting everywhere. I just started on Friend Feed and Twitter so no one really following me there. Facebook I have 20 or 30 old classmates on my list but I don't know if any of them have ever read any of it. I don't really publicize this blog, I just do it to inspire myself to write. So I don't know if all this effort and resulting mess is getting me anywhere but feeding my compulsion to use every cool technology I find.

Incidentally, I was going to embed my Retaggr card to the end of this post but then I realized I already have a Retaggr widget on this blog. So go check out all the marks I left all over the social web like a Pomeranian peeing on every flower along the nature path.

I wouldn't have wanted a car in high school if...

2008-11-07T19:22:00.001-08:00

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

Search pictures on the internet at blazing speeds

2008-10-19T16:35:00.000-07:00

Image via CrunchBase
This is a Firefox extension called Piclens, now they've changed the name to Cooliris. It's a Firefox extension that lets you search for pictures on Google, Flickr, Photobucket and other sites, on a never ending 3D wall. You can scroll down the wall and fly through pages of matches that you would normally have to go through 10 images at a time in your browser.

You can click a button to go to the page where the picture is to download it, or you can email it right from Piclens. It also works with videos and now they've added a shopping search. If you don't have anything toImage by Bob Dragna via Flickr
search for, you can just browse by topics.

Some websites like Facebook are already enabled with integrated Piclens control. You'll see a little icon in the lower left corner of a thumbnail when you point your cursor at it and when you click it, all the photos in that album pop up in Piclens.

Image by See-ming Lee 李思明 SML via Flickr

Sharing my posts

2008-10-19T15:58:00.000-07:00

In light of a rather rude complaint I got recently from someone whose article I shared on my blog here (with full credit and praise), I've decided to lay down some simple rules if you ever want to share my posts. The only rule is: there aren't any rules.

To me, copyright infringement is distributing my work and claiming it as yours, or profiting from my work. Sharing it with somebody else and saying look at this great article I found, is a compliment to me and it is helping me by spreading the word about my blog and getting more readers to my work. Writers and students quote the work of others in their articles and books all the time. That's why we use bibliographies and footnotes.

Nothing I post on here, I really consider "my work" except for maybe three research papers that I posted here. Nothing else on this blog took any real work on my part nor did I use my writing skills. This post for example, breaks several rules of good writing. I'm using a conversational tone. So if you copy this post, maybe it's not nice but it's not exactly stealing my work.

Even those articles I wrote that I posted here, feel free to share them with whoever you want. Post them to your blog if you want. I use a Firefox extension called Zemanta that gives you an easy way to to do it. There's a reblog button at the bottom of my posts. You can also print these out and give them out to people, put them on a t shirt, tattoo it on your ass, I really do not care. As long as my name is on it and you tell them where you got it from, I am thrilled to have my work reach a bigger audience and proud that you thought it was good enough to share.

Self important author that thinks he's Hemmingway told me it would be better if I linked to the article on here rather than posting it. Does any rational person see what difference it makes whether people read it here waste time jumping to another page to do the same exact thing they could do here? Don't answer that, it's a rhetorical question. Point is, I'm not a primadonna, I don't consider my blog here to be a masterpiece. I don't care if people come here to read it or read it on your page. Copy and paste it to your blog if you want to. Just again, put my name on it and where you got it from. Just don't plagurize me, that's all I care about.

If you do post it somewhere or share it, drop me a line or post a comment if you feel like it and let me know you found it interesting.

If there's anything you see on my page that you don't think should be here, just send me a message and ask me nicely and talk to me with respect. No need for drama.

As for my terrible crime of giving praise to a blog poster who thinks he's a great author, I will not be linking to his post. I am not going to help drive traffic to his site. I would have if he had been more reasonable about it. Instead, I'm going to write my own article on the same subject. I'll write it much more concise and get the point across in far fewer pages. I use it for reference for people considering switching to Mac and they don't want to read through pages and pages of his babbling anyway. I should have written a synopsis to begin with. I won't need to quote him because he didn't provide any information Mac users don't already know. He just saved me the trouble of writing up something myself.

Bookmash - Bring the Web to Your Desktop

2008-10-15T19:58:00.000-07:00

Bookmash - Bring the Web to Your Desktop

This is just like Cooliris Piclens but you can search videos, pictures, music, news and social (though I can't figure out what this actually does). You can download what you find or share it to any social networking or bookmarking site instantly. It's awesome. It's free and it works on Mac or Windblows.

Also, if you don't know what Cooliris is, go get it. It's a Firefox extension that will make searching for photos 1,000 times faster and easier. www.cooliris.com.

Red Sox: Evil Empire II?

2008-10-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

I've seen people saying a lot lately that the Red Sox have become like the new Evil Empire. Although I certainly understand why people are saying that, it really is not true. It's true, they are a big market team and they are enjoying the perennial success that the Yankees did for 11 years, but the reasons for it are clearly different.
Image by phillenium1979 via Flickr
At first, I delighted in seeing people say that because all my life until 2004, the Red Sox were the perennial failures and really gave us nothing to look forward to. The Yankees shafted them on every front: from every big free agent to the benefit of every bad umpire call to winning the division every year somehow, some way, to always winning the World Series. So for the Red Sox to take the Yankees' place perched atop the baseball world is poetic justice.

But the reason the Yankees were always called the Evil Empire was the way they overpaid for every big star on the market so that no other team, even the second richest team the Red Sox, had a chance at improving their team. Even if any team did improve, the Yankees still always one upped them. And the Yankees pay roll is just sickening. They're a team of mercenaries thrown together to manufacture a championship. Thus the Yankees bought championships.

The Red Sox do have some big stars and have paid out big contracts to big free agents. But the difference between the Red Sox' 2008 payroll and the Yankees' 2008 payroll, just the difference between them, is bigger than the entire payroll of 18 of the other 28 teams. And most of the Red Sox stars were cultivated in the farm system. The Red Sox are perennial winners because they're just good. They have smart management that builds from within. The team is made up of guys that came up through the system together, not greedy primadonnas who came together for the biggest jackpot. Image via Wikipedia

Red Sox management also spends wisely. They invest just enough in proven players who are still in their prime. How many big name has beens and never will be's did the Yankees bury under a pile of money, only to be disappointed? (for example, Kevin Brown, Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, Jose Contreras, Carl Pavano, etc.)

So let's look at the Red Sox current team and see how many overpaid mercenaries they have.

1B: Kevin Youkilis. Came up through the farm system.
2B: Dustin Pedroia. Came up through the farm system.
SS: Jed Lowrie. Farm system.
3B: Mike Lowell. Expensive player. Not really a mercenary though.
C: Jason Varitek. Acquired as a minor leaguer so farm system.
LF: Jason Bay. Gray area but we'll call it mercanary because Manny is the second biggest merc below Gay Rod. And he would still be there if he wasn't just as greedy and selfish and a cheater as Gay Rod. Jason Bay is only there by circumstance. So Bay is not a merc but we're gonna count this position as one.
CF: Jacoby Ellsbury. Farm system.
RF: JD Drew. Expensive player.

Pitchers:
Dice K. Definately a merc.
John Lester. Farm system.
Josh Beckett. Expensive player.
Closer Jonathan Papelbon. Farm system.

So by my count, most of the Red Sox big stars all came up through the farm system. That's about as far from an evil empire as you can get. That's the kind of make up that small market teams are built with.

One final point. The Red Sox, along with the White Sox, Cubs and maybe a couple others, went so long without anything to be happy about that they are entitled to having a dynasty for a while. Maybe not the Cubs though because they are a pathetic disgrace to baseball.

Kudos to Tim McCarver for standing by his comments on Manny Ramirez

2008-10-10T18:31:00.000-07:00

Like we didn't know who Manny Ramirez is

2008-10-07T22:14:00.000-07:00

Redneck stop sign

2008-10-05T21:33:00.000-07:00

Prescription drugs and the FDA

2008-10-04T23:41:00.000-07:00

At the young age of 30, a severe attack of gout had rendered me a helpless invalid dependent on another person to take care of me. The excruciating pain of moving my toes or touching my foot to the floor was simply too great for me to walk. This malady had afflicted me for over two years and the attacks were getting more severe and more frequent. My doctor had told me there was no cure and the only treatment involved daily doses of drugs with harmful side effects and there was no way to be sure they would work for me. So I did my own research and found a healthy, natural cure that could virtually eliminate gout attacks. If I had done as most people do and simply trusted the medical profession without question, I would have faced a life of terrible pain and disability. Nature has provided a safe and effective cure for most ailments and yet millions of Americans suffer through their illnesses because they believe that their doctor and the pharmaceutical companies are the final word on their health. Millions more become more ill or die because they blindly trust their doctor to give them drugs that are safe. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), that is supposed to be protecting us from unsafe drugs, has proven that it is either unable or unwilling to do the the job it was created for. The FDA only protects the interests of pharmaceutical companies and ignores the best treatments for the people it is supposed to protect.
Gout is caused by underperforming kidneys that are unable to adequately metabolize uric acid. This naturally occurring chemical is the end product of the breakdown of purines found in a plethora of foods and drinks. It is normally flushed out in the urine but when the body cannot dissolve it and pass it through to the bladder, it crystallizes into microscopic needles. The uric acid crystals collect around the joints, almost always in the foot, and send searing pain through the tissues like little invisible shards of glass.
To prevent attacks, I could try to avoid foods that contain high amounts of purines. However, it is not clearly known what foods are high in purines, what levels they have, or what levels it takes to cause an attack. For example, even if I were to eat a bag of shrimp, which is known to have a high purine content, there is no certainty that it would cause an attack. On the other hand, I may not consume any purines at all and still have an attack. The list of foods containing purines varies depending on the source because it is not known for certain so some sources simply name every food or drink a person has ever reported consuming before an attack. Even if I wanted to cut these foods out of my diet entirely, eat healthy and lose weight, that sudden change in diet could cause an attack. Not drinking enough water can Image via Wikipediacause an attack, with or without a high purine intake. Not all gout sufferers have the same triggers. A food that causes me to have an acute attack, may not be a problem for somebody else.
The alternative to this uncertain experimentation with diet, was to take a daily drug called Allopurinol that would reduce the uric acid levels in my blood. But the doctor advised against this treatment unless the attacks became too frequent to tolerate because he said Allopurinol can cause severe liver damage over a long period of regular use. What’s worse, in the first few months of using Allopurinol, the drug can actually cause an increase in gout attacks. To counter this increase in attacks, another drug is given on top of it, called Colchicine, which has its own set of side effects. For all of these ill effects on my body, there was still no guarantee that the Allopurinol would reduce my attacks.
Unwilling to simply accept a future of debilitating illness without a fight, I did my own research on alternative cures. I found dozens of natural remedies that either prevent attacks, or reduce the severity of them. The most important of these cures was cherries. Cherries and many other berries get their color pigment from anthocyanins. According to all of the information I found, anthocyanins have tremendous health benefits. One website reported that, “anthocyanins are antioxidant flavonoids that protect many body systems. They have some of the strongest physiological effects of any plant compounds” (http://chiro.org/nutrition/FULL/Anthocyanins.shtml). The anthocyanins break down the uric acid crystals and reduce inflammation, which are the two causes of pain with gout.
In 1950 Dr. Ludwig W. Blau Ph.D discovered the benefits of cherries for gout by serendipity and reported it in Prevention magazine. His gout was so severe that he was confined to a wheelchair. He ate a bowl of cherries one day and the next day, his pain was gone. He continued eating at least 6 cherries a day and soon was able to walk. This sparked his research and that of many others in the decades since. Cheries have been linked to benefits for diabetes, colon cancer, heart health and other muscular diseases.
So I began a daily regimen of organic apple cider vinegar, an herb called devil’s claw, powdered cherry extract and pure black cherry juice along with eating cherries as often as I could. I also kept on hand other remedies that lessen the severity of an attack, should one arise. Since gout attacks sometimes come once a year and sometimes every two months, only time would tell how well these treatments work.
Four months after beginning this regimen, I had a gout attack. It lasted a week and a half and was painful, requiring the use of some pain medication. But it was the least severe attack I had ever had. I was able to walk for the entire duration of the attack. I walked with a limp but I did not miss any work or school. That was the first time I had ever had a gout attack and been able to walk. It is difficult to say with certainty that these remedies are the reason this attack was so mild, but it would be an odd coincidence if they were not the reason.
Then a month after this attack had subsided, I had the start of another. I woke up one day with pain bad enough that I borrowed my mother’s walker to get around my apartment. I took an extra cherry capsule and drank extra cherry juice and vinegar, and by the end of that day, the attack had completely subsided. Compared to every other gout flare I had ever had, that was downright miraculous.
This raises obvious questions: why didn’t the doctor tell me about cherries? Why do doctors prescribe drugs that make us sick when there are perfectly safe and more effective treatments at the grocery store? Why isn’t there more public awareness of natural remedies?
Although only doctors can explain their choices in treatments for their patients, it is doctors’ choices that explain public awareness. The majority of people blindly trust what their doctors tell them. They assume that their doctor knows what he or she is talking about and that they have their best interest at heart. It is also assumed that if there is a cure for something, the doctor will tell them. The first assumption is probably true most of the time, but it is readily apparent that there are many cures our doctors aren’t telling us about. Thus most people never find the treatment that is best for them.
Another factor leading people away from effective treatment is, ironically, the FDA. Most people also blindly trust FDA approval without question. It is after all, a government body that exists with only one purpose: to watch out for the health and safety of the public. This too, is misguided trust. The FDA approves all manner of drugs with as many side effects as benefits. It even approves drugs that are dangerous and ineffective. It also completely ignores natural remedies. It is motivated more by the interests of the wealthy pharmaceutical companies than of the public.
Pharmaceutical companies are allowed to make any claims they please about the benefits of their drugs. Yet herbalists and marketers of natural remedies are not even allowed to directly state what their products are good for on the packaging, nor are they allowed to promote it for that purpose. People have to do their own research and seek out these products with knowledge in hand of what they do.
The FDA does not approve natural remedies, nor regulate them at all. Because of this, many people assume they are not safe. They equate a lack of approval with a disapproval. Even if they disregard the FDA’s policy of ignoring natural remedies, it is difficult for people to choose a natural product because the quality of the products is not regulated. Since there is no standard, there is no real way to know the potency or effectiveness of the brand of a supplement you are buying.
The FDA says it cannot regulate or approve natural products because their potency is determined by nature. It cannot be precisely created in a laboratory so the the agency simply ignores them.
Most people seem to forget that the FDA is comprised of imperfect humans. Through biased research and lobbyists, the pharmaceutical companies have far greater resources to sway the opinions of FDA members than vitamin companies or the general public. Pharmaceuticals is one of the largest and wealthiest industries in the country, and much of the cost of drugs goes toward marketing and lobbyists.
The imperfect humans that make up the FDA are perfectly capable of making mistakes, as evidenced in the case of Ketek. In 2004, the FDA approved this drug, “lauding it as the first of a new class of antimicrobial agents that circumvent antibiotic resistance” (Ross, 2007). However the FDA based its approval upon data it knew to be suspect. The FDA had paid doctors $400 per patient to recruit patients to test the drug. It was discovered that several doctors had provided information on fictitious patients to collect the money and many of those doctors were prosecuted. It may never be known how many of the patients really existed and how many were the schemes of greedy doctors. The FDA approved Ketek anyway despite mountains of internal documents alerting them to the inaccuracy of the data at hand. By 2006, the drug was known to have caused at least 5Image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via Flickr3 cases of liver illnesses, four of which were fatal. The actual effectiveness of the drug to accomplish what is meant for was never proven.
Another, more publicized failure of the FDA was its decision to approve the fat substitute olestra. This oil was used to make Lays Wow potato chips, which were fat free and tasted remarkably like traditional potato chips. However, by the end of 1998, tens of thousands of people reported getting severely ill from consuming olestra including violent, uncontrollable diarrhea and vomiting. Many experienced such severe abdominal pain that they went to the emergency room. The product was eventually pulled from the market.
The FDA’s epic failures are eroding public faith in the agency. In a survey conducted in April of this year by Harris Interactive for the Wall Street Journal Online, 60% of respondents responded negatively to questions of trust in the FDA. Only 35% responded with the feeling that the FDA does a good job of ensuring the safety of drugs that come to market. This positive response has declined from 45% last year and 56% in 2004.
Even if it were possible to trust the word of the FDA, it is still possible to be prescribed drugs that the FDA has not approved. An article reported on CNN’s website this year, explained how doctors unknowingly have prescribed unapproved drugs. This is because when a drug is submitted for approval, the FDA assigns it a 10 digit numerical code called the National Drug Code. Pharmacies use this same code to order drugs and usually do not know of its status with the FDA. In a survey cited in the article, nine out of ten retail pharmacists did not know that this code does not mean the drug is approved. Adding to the confusion, the pharmaceutical companies do not always wait for approval before they begin marketing drugs to doctors. So doctors see marketing material, and it has a code in the pharmacy so they assume it is approved for use and prescribe it to their patients. Pharmacists are able to order it like any other drug using its National Drug Code and assume that it has been through the approval process.
Although the FDA has known about this problem for over forty years, it has only recently begun cracking down on drug manufacturers. In the meantime, a lot of people lost their lives because they trusted that their government and their doctors were competent enough to do their jobs effectively. In 2007 for example, the FDA ordered pharmaceutical companies to stop marketing drugs containing quinine. Quinine actually had been approved but only for treating the deadly disease malaria. But drug manufacturuers began marketing it for leg cramps. According to the FDA, quinine has been linked to 665 cases of adverse affects, including 93 deaths.
This is not to say there have never been any claims against so called natural cures. There have been some complaints regarding the safety of Glucosamine, which is taken for arthritis. However their arguments are based solely on speculation and assumptions, with no medical studies to back it up. There was no scientific data proving that any of these treatments were anything less than safe, only personal prejudice that I suspect is founded largely on a fear of the unknown and an unwillingness to accept uncertainty in something as important as the guardians of one’s health.
In 2003, Dr. Peter A. G. M. De Smet made claims in the New England Journal of Medicine that several herbs had been in use for generations but only recently found to be toxic. He cited Kava and Aristolochia plants, though he did not say what data, if any, he had used to make a determination about these herbs. He pointed out that it is difficult to know for certain the occurrence of these adverse reactions because there is no watchdog group like the FDA tracking it. It is also not easy to tell when these ill effects are occurring because they tend not to be sudden and severe as with pharmaceuticals, but rather gradual, such as liver damage for example.
Dr. De Smet also made a statement about the difficulty in tracking the harmful side effects of natural medicine that sounds more like an argument for its safety, given the rarity of the occurrence. ''If an herb caused an adverse reaction in 1 in 1,000 users,” he said, “a traditional healer would have to treat 4,800 patients with that herb (i.e., one new patient every single working day for more than 18 years) to have a 95 percent chance of observing the reaction in more than one user.''
The only argument I could find of those who oppose using any treatments not governed by the FDA is simply that we do not know if they are safe or how effective they are. While this is true, and even if the claims against Glucosamine were true, that is not a reason to ignore alternative treatments. We know for a fact that prescription drugs have harmful side effects and that there is no certainty any of them will work as promised. Yet no one is advocating that we ignore doctor’s orders and consider all our prescriptions to be non-viable solutions. So why should natural remedies be dismissed so easily because of the unknown in favor of the dangerous alternative that is known?
In fact, a study released this year, Florida’s annual report on Drugs Identified in Deceased Persons, shows that last year more than three times as many people died of prescription drugs than from all street drugs combined. This is largely due to people abusing prescription drugs; taking more than the prescribed dose and obtaining extra quantities through illegal means. However, prescription drugs taken as directed are just as dangerous. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that 1.9 million adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs occur each year.
There was also a lack of evidence for the effectiveness of many alternative treatments as well. Even in the examples such as anthocyanins, where there have been extensive studies, there is no way to be assured that the powder in those capsules I take is actually high potency cherry extract. There are many variations from many vendors. However there is little question of the effectiveness of natural remedies as even the pharmaceutical industry has embraced it with open arms. According to a February, 2003 article in the New York Times, nearly half of all prescription drugs are derived from plants or a synthetic version of plant compounds.
I would greatly urge the FDA to put aside their loyalties to the pharmaceutical companies and do the studies that we are unable to do. Because of the great lack of information, I would never advocate anyone ignore every prescription. I would only say to weigh all of your options and do not take the doctor’s word as the final say. Research the medicines you are taking and if you don’t like what you find out, search for an alternative. For any condition, there are many different ways to treat it. The most important thing to remember is that just because your doctor is unable to help you, does not necessarily mean you cannot help yourself.

References

Allopurinol facts and comparsions at Drugs.com. (n.d.). Retrieved Sep. 18, 2008, from http://www.drugs.com/cdi/allopurinol.html.

Baker, S. (n.d.). Prescription Drugs More Deadly Than Cocaine, Heroin, Amphetamines. Retrieved Sep. 7, 2008, from http://www.naturalnews.com/024052.html.

Brody, J. (2003, Feb. 4). PERSONAL HEALTH; Herbal and Natural Don't Always Mean Safe - New York Times. Retrieved Sep. 7, 2008, from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9905E4DB1038F937A35751C0A9659C8B63&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss.

Dietary Supplements: Bacground Information. (2003, June 22). Retrieved April 29, 2008, from ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/dietarysupplements.asp#h4.

Gout - researchDiet & Lifestyle. (n.d.). Retrieved May 20, 2008, from http://www.internethealthlibrary.com/Health-problems/Gout%20-%20researchDiet&Lifestyle.htm.

Gruber, A. (n.d.). Many drugs slip through regulatory 'black hole' - CNN.com. Retrieved April 29, 2008, from http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/09/26/unapproved.drugs/index.html.

Harris Interactive | News Room - Confidence in FDA Hits New Low, According to WSJ.com/Harris Interactive Study. (n.d.). Retrieved Sep. 7, 2008, from http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/allnewsbydate.asp?NewsID=1301.

Milligan, A. (n.d.). Why The FDA Suppresses Natural Remedies and Cures. Retrieved April 29, 2008, from http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-The-FDA-Suppresses-Natural-Remedies-and-Cures&id=643078.

Ross, D. (2007). The FDA and the Case of Ketek. The New England Journal of Medicine, 356(16), 1601. Retrieved May 6, 2008, from the ProQuest Health Management database.

Sterling, M. (n.d.). Anthocyanins. Retrieved May 20, 2008, from http://chiro.org/nutrition/FULL/Anthocyanins.shtml.

Sync your Mac with your Windows Mobile phone

2008-10-04T23:05:00.000-07:00

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Manny looking in the toilet

2008-10-03T17:39:00.001-07:00

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

Sarah Palin and Hillary

2008-10-01T17:50:00.001-07:00

Sarah Palin interview

2008-10-01T17:34:00.001-07:00

Download You Tube videos to your hard drive

2008-09-28T01:12:00.001-07:00

http://tinyurl.com/3sgbeh

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Man gets arrested for farting on a cop(click the post to see it full size)

2008-09-25T21:04:00.000-07:00

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Manny is a disgrace to baseball

2008-09-17T20:47:00.000-07:00

<> Text size – +

Schilling blasts Manny

Email|Link|Comments (23) Posted by Chad Finn, Globe Staff September 17, 2008 05:12 PM

Injured Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling threw some high heat at former teammate Manny Ramirez this afternoon on sports radio WEEI's "The Big Show," saying the slugger's "level of disrespect to teammates and people was unfathomable."

"The guy got to dress in a locker away from the team for seven years," said Schilling, talking via telephone with Glenn Ordway and former Sox players Lou Merloni and Brian Daubach. "And then [when] he's on this crusade to get out of here, all of a sudden he's in the locker room every day, voicing his displeasure without even having to play the game that night."

Schilling said Ramirez's antics particularly weighed on manager Terry Francona.

"Nothing makes a guy that respects the game and respects human beings like Terry Francona feel worse than looking at a guy and saying, 'Go ahead, [mess] with me, [mess] with your teammates, I'll put you in the lineup,' and then turn around to a guy whose there every day early working his [butt] off who gets 110 at-bats a year and saying, "You know what? Yeah, I can't put you in there tonight," Schilling said. "There were times when you had players who were on like fire duty, 'Show up tomorrow, I'm not sure if you're playing or not, we've gotta find out what [Manny] wants to do.' That's not fair to anybody."

Other comments from Schilling:

On whether David Ortiz was frustrated with Ramirez (Ordway noted that he appeared to be shortly before the trade): "What you guys hear and see is generally 10 to 20 percent of what exists."

On why he is speaking out now: "The thing about it for me, is, I haven't thrown a freakin' pitch all year, I've been the biggest waste of space, I've been robbing payroll for the entire season, no one feels worse about not contributing than me . . . I'm the last person in the world who should be telling you who's right and who's wrong in this. But I was a teammate, a member of this family, and I saw it, and it's no different than what Lou [Merloni] and Brian [Daubach] saw. And to me, it was always those guys, the guys who played a crucial role on teams that weren't the marquee players, are the ones that were disrespected the most, because if any of those players ever acted or did or said anything. [Speaking to Merloni:] Lou, you're in Seattle, and if you refused to get on a team plane, you know what they'd do? They'd give you an Air France ticket home."

On whether teammates are upset Ramirez is doing so well with the Dodgers "I don't know about [ticked] . . . as an everyday player, with what you have to go through mentally, getting ready to play, you don't spend a lot of energy worrying about stuff like that. I wouldn't say [ticked], I'd probably say disappointed more than anything. Because the one thing about Manny is that he was . . . he was very kind, and well-mannered, but there were spurts and times when you didn't know who he was. You know, he was always kind and nice for the most part, but he'd show up the next day and say, 'I'm through with this team, I want out now.'

Perhaps the most damning quote about Ramirez during the interview came from Merloni:

"When all this stuff was going down with Manny, I remember walking in the clubhouse talking to a couple of guys, and I got one response that just threw me for a loop, and I said, 'Guys, how bad is it?' I knew it was bad, and I just said, 'How bad is it?' And all I heard, what they told me, was, 'Carl Everett.' And I lived that nightmare. . . and when I heard that, I said, 'OK, I know exactly what's going on, I can't believe it got that bad.' "

Why not just buy a Mac?

2008-09-17T11:39:00.000-07:00

It wouldn't be that much more expensive than buying a PC and this thing together. And then you'd have the benefit of Mac hardware and the Apple keyboard that when you type on it, "it feels like your fingers are floating on air" as I heard one computer guy put it. Look around the net and and you'll see all kinds of hacks people come up with to put OSX on their PC. You can install Windows on a Mac without doing anything funky or buying a USB dongle. Wouldn't it make more sense to get the better hardware and install the inferior Windows OS on it in case you need it? Rather than buying crap hardware and trying to pretend it's something better.

"

OS X-installing EFi-X now shipping for $155 - Engadget via kwout

Funny Weight Watchers ad on the back of a bus

2008-09-16T23:02:00.000-07:00

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The coolest car I've ever seen

2008-09-09T22:33:00.001-07:00

Search everything from one page

2008-09-09T22:11:00.000-07:00

Search everything you could want to search right from this page, with the results separated into tabs. There's all these categories on the right that you can search and the results from 10 pages are given, each page on a separate tab. I didn't even know there are that many font sites.

Your phone stolen? Not a problem anymore.

2008-09-09T22:05:00.000-07:00

G4 - Attack of the Show: "Cell Phone Thief Torture App?
Posted By: Frank Meyer - Tuesday, September 09, 2008 1:26 PM

Maverick Secure Mobile has a new cell application in beta testing stage that will delight those of that have had our cell phones stolen and wish there was something we coulda done about it.

When you install the Maverick Mobile application, you provide the phone number of a second device, called a 'receiving device,' on which to receive any information from the stolen phone. When you remotely retrieve your address book contacts or other data, it goes to the receiving device via SMS or text message.

So when the thief tries to use your phone or changes the SIM (Subscriber Identify Module) card, you can disable the stolen phone remotely, track the phone's use and retrieve your data. Plus, if you call the stolen phone with the 'receiving device' it turns on a speaker and microphone on the stolen phone remotely so you can spy on any calls being made and the thief will be none the wiser.

Nice, eh?

But best of all, you can actually torture your thief. Yes, you can remotely send a piercing alarm to the stolen phone that the crook can only turn off by removing battery. The alarm goes back on when he puts the battery back in. Sweet, eh?

Source"

The best search site not called Google

2008-09-03T16:29:00.000-07:00

This site lets you search by different categories. Within each category, it searches relevant sites so you don't have as much narrowing down to do. You can change up and switch out the search boxes, though it doesn't seem like it will remember your settings so you'll have to keep moving around boxes each time you log in. Or maybe it will. It remembered mine once, forgot it once. So we'll see. But I've searched with it and it's pretty cool. I found it on www.makeuseof.com. There's a post on there that gives you more information about Hittery.

Hittery.com - your custom search dashboard via kwout

Evernote - It's like Microsoft OneNote but free, cross platform and better.

2008-09-02T22:18:00.000-07:00

Download To Mobile Phone

Slate Article: Is Something Rotten at Apple?

2008-08-29T06:54:00.000-07:00

an article from .

This is an article from Slate about the problems people are having with connecting to the supposed 3G network, or even just holding onto a phone call. It doesn't display right but I don't know what I can do to fix that. This was emailed to me and I forwarded it to my blog by email.

I've been telling people the iPhone is junk since it first came out. Now they just proved me right. Macs are still the far superior best though. I'm still a Mac zealot and always will be. I'm just not in love with Apple and I'm not an ignorant follower that just believes in hype and spends too much money on something just so I can say I have one.

Is Something Rotten at Apple?
E-mail problems, flaky iPhones, and broken Macs. What's Steve Jobs to do?
By Farhad Manjoo
Posted Monday, Aug. 25, 2008, at 5:40 PM ET

In its ubiquitous TV ads, Apple claims that its new iPhone is twice as fast as the original version and just half the price. Neither is true. The half-price fib has been obvious for some time: When you add the price of AT&T's required two-year contract, the new phone costs slightly more than the old phone. In a lawsuit filed last week, an iPhone owner na med Jessica Alena Smith argues that Apple hasn't been honest about the phone's speed, either. Smith, echoing thousands of complaints logged on Apple's Web site, says that her iPhone rarely connects to AT&T's fast 3G network, instead staying fixed to the pokey EDGE service that was the bane of the first iPhone. Smith's iPhone doesn't just fail on tasks like downloading e-mail and surfing the Web, she says. It also drops many of her voice calls.

Smith lives in Birmingham, Ala., but I've had the same problem with my iPhone 3G in cell-tower-rich San Francisco—more dropped calls than I've ever had on a cell phone (including on the original iPhone) and terribly spotty 3G service. Last month, I raved about the great third-party programs available on the iPhone's fantastic built-in App Store. But I've since soured on that system, too. As many iPhone owners have noticed, the phone often mysteriously refuses to load these apps, rendering them useless. Smith is asking a judge to grant her lawsuit class-action status. I hope it's approved. Apple has reluctantly acknowledged flaws in the iPhone and has quietly promised to correct them, but there's no sign that it's taking the complaints very seriously. The lawsuit might be just the kick it needs to fix the world's broken iPhones.

But the company's troubles go beyond the iPhone. Last month, Apple launched MobileMe, a $100-per-year online service that aimed to sync documents and e-mail across computers and Internet devices. MobileMe failed spectacularly in its opening weeks, with some users reporting losing years of saved e-mail. In a widely circulated post, Techcrunch's Michael Arrington claimed last week that Apple's PCs aren't doing so well either. Arrington, a longtime Apple fan, says he's had four new Macs break in different ways—one refused to connect to Wi-Fi networks, one suffered a keyboard flaw, and two shut down mysteriously.

Is something rotten at App! le? Is it "flailing badly at the edges," as Arrington argues? Is it possible that Steve Jobs' reality distortion field is finally weakening—that the scales have fallen from our eyes and we're now seeing that Apple's products are just as flawed and prone to failure as any other hardware?

Well, not really. As Apple fans point out, people still love Apple. Last week the American Customer Satisfaction Index, an annual survey of consumers' feelings about major brands, gave Apple a record score of 85 points out of 100 in the personal-computer cat! egory. Apple scored 10 points higher than Dell, 12 points higher than Hewlett-Packard, and 13 points higher than Gateway. Apple has led the category for five years straight. Claes Fornell, who directs the survey, told Computerworld that even though customers know that Apple's products aren't perfect, "Apple has an almost Teflon-like quality. Its problems don't really seem to matter to consumers." So much for the death of the reality distortion field.

Why don't consumers seem to care about Apple's problems? For one thing, Apple gets more press than any other company in tech, and both its successes and failures tend to dominate the Silicon Valley blogosophere. It registers as big tech news when a high-flying blogger like Arrington gets a few unlucky Macs, but such difficulties probably don't filter down to most customers. Years of savvy brand advertising and a string of genuinely great p! roducts have helped Apple build up a well of good-feeling; as a result, people are more willing to overlook the company's occasional failures. Besides, many Apple products still beat their rivals, hands down. You may hate Apple for selling you an iPod with a battery that dies, but what are you going to do when you go looking for a new music player—get a Zune? Not likely.

What's troubling, though, is Apple's tendency to milk this advantage—when it does screw up, it prefers secrecy over full disclosure, and it expects customers to quickly forgive any slight. Its response to the MobileMe meltdown was a classic example. For several days after the site's rocky launch, Apple refused to disclose what had gone wrong. It wouldn't say why MobileMe was down, and it wouldn't say when MobileMe would be fixed. Only after the New York Times' David! Pogue and the Wall Street Journal's Walter Mossberg published critical columns did Apple change its tune. Two weeks after MobileMe's launch, the company put up a blog documenting the service's status. Last week, it gave all users a credit for two months of MobileMe service.

Apple is dealing with iPhone problems in much the same way—grudgingly. Apple-focused blogs recently reported that Jobs fired off one-line e-mail replies to two different customers upset about iPhone difficulties; in each case, he said Appl! e was working on the problems. And an Apple spokeswoman told USA Today that Apple would issue a software patch to improve "communication with 3G networks." But that's it: The company won't say why the phone's failing to load apps or connect to 3G, it won't say how serious the problems are, and it won't say what, if anything, customers can do to resolve the problems until it issues a fix.

Contrast Apple's response to how other major tech firms handled recent failures. As Adam Engst, editor of the Mac newsletter TidBits, points out, when Netflix suffered shipping delays earlier this month, it issued an immediate, clear explanation and apology and automatically credited customers' accounts. Netflix customers raved about how the company handled the p roblem. Voilà: The company turned a tech failure into a PR win. Google accomplished something similar when Gmail died for a few hours on Aug. 11. Within hours of noticing the problem, Google put out a statement on its blog explaining what had gone wrong—the post was titled, "We feel your pain, and we're sorry"—and the steps it had taken to prevent a future failure.

Apple's strategy for dealing with complaints stems from a companywide emphasis on secrecy. Tight lips work well for Apple, building suspense among loyalists and the press about upcoming products and burnishing its reputation as a company that leads rather than follows. But as it expands into new, highly complex businesses—phones, set-top boxes, "cloud computing" ser! vices—Apple is sure to make more mistakes. As Jobs wrote in an internal e-mail to employees, the MobileMe screw-up happened because the company was trying to do too much at the same time (the system launched on the same day as the new iPhone) and because "we have more to learn about Internet services."

What's more, Apple's customer base is widening beyond longtime Mac fanatics—people who give the company a pass because they regard it as an underdog. The Mac's market share is growing rapidly, suggesting that lots of Windows users are switching. Last month, millions of people waited in line for the iPhone not because it was emblazoned with the Apple logo, but because they'd heard it was the best phone on the market. Combine that with the fact that the iPhone and MobileMe are vital to people's lives in a way that, say, an iPod isn't, and you've g! ot a recipe for customer dissatisfaction. You may be willing to overlo ok Apple's silence about a dead battery on your MP3 player. But if the company continues to stonewall people whose phones cut off every five minutes, Steve Jobs better get ready for some marches on Cupertino.

Farhad Manjoo is Slate's technology columnist and the author of True Enough: Learning To Live in a Post-Fact Society.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2198535/

Second Life Stalker

2008-08-22T20:52:00.001-07:00

Some people take this game way too seriously. Below is a blog post from G4TV. I didn't write it. There's a link to the original post.

G4 - Attack of the Show

'Second Life' Attempted Kidnapping

Posted By: Patrick Roche-Sowa - Friday, August 22, 2008 3:05 PM

Oh boy. As if having an internet boyfriend wasn't embarrassing enough, a North Carolina woman is facing attempted kidnapping charges for driving to Delaware and trying to take her former Second Life companion at gunpoint.

Kimberly Jernigan met her internet significant other in person a few months ago, after which the "victim" in this situation ended their relationship. Apparently, this sent poor Jernigan into a downward spiral, and after her first kidnapping at gunpoint attempt was laughed at, she posed as a US Postal worker to get his new address, broke into his home, bound and gagged his dog in the bathroom, and greeted him at the front door with a laser-sighted BB gun. I'm so not kidding.

After seeing the red dot appear on his chest when he walked inside, the victim immediately fled and called the police. His dog was unharmed, and the cops picked up Jernigan on the freeway sometime later. She is currently facing charges of attempted kidnapping, burglary, and aggravated menacing. So. Awesome.

Source

This is the first phone that really seriously comes close to being as cool as the iPhone

2008-08-18T19:04:00.001-07:00

As much as I hate to admit it, the iPhone is the coolest phone out right now. It's not the best, but it's the coolest. That is how Apple has for so long gotten away with selling an inferior product and beating out all of its far superior competition. The HTC Touch Diamond and Touch Pro is the first real competitor that raises the bar for Apple.

Go here and look at what the interface is like on this phone. It's the first one I've seen that looks better than the iPhone. It's all 3D and it does the automatically tilt the screen when you rotate the phone thing like the iPhone does. And the phone looks better and you can get it with or without a keyboard. It's also got a tv out so if you get the HTC cable to go with it, you can connect it to a monitor or tv and run a Powerpoint presentation off it, and who knows what else. It's got all the specs of the iPhone and some better: wifi, 3.2 MP camera, memory card slot up to 16GB, Windows Mobile 6.1 (so lots of apps and support), stereo bluetooth, 3G, GPS.

There's going to be some variation of it on all the major carriers this fall, both GSM and CDMA, so anybody can get one. The iPhone would sell a lot more if it wasn't so far out of reach for many people like myself. For me personally, the iPhone is not everything I want and I'll never have the money to get one nor the desire to tolerate Cingular/AT&T screwing up my bill every single month. For me to get an iPhone right now, I'd have to buy out of my Sprint contract, pay up money I owe to Cingular, pay a security deposit to get service with them because I have bad credit, then pay for the iPhone and a more expensive plan every month. I still wouldn't have a keyboard to type on or some of the other things the iPhone still lacks that I value. So there is nothing Apple could ever do to the iPhone that would make it worth the literally $1,000 to $1,500 I'd have to spend to get one. Even if I hadn't screwed Cingular out of the money they tried to screw me out of all those years ago, it'd still be a venture that would cost me many hundreds of dollars. I am certain there are many people out there like me. When you consider that Tmobile will let anyone have service with a contract regardless of their credit with little or no deposit, and Sprint will let anyone on board with a deposit far less than that of Cingular (at least the deposits Cingular demanded a few years ago when I worked at Cingular), this phone being available on all carriers allows it to reach a vast audience that the iPhone doesn't have access to. Also, Sprint still allows customers to upgrade their phone after one year into their contract. They will get less of a discount than someone off contract but they will still get a cheaper price than buying it outright. So, in the example of me, I can spend four figures on an iPhone and enslave myself to a vile company that I despise, or I can spend a third of that or less and get the Touch Pro on the carrier I'm already on.

The HTC Touch Pro is like the iPhone's hotter, more talented sister. It's also the iPhone's less snobby, more slutty sister since it can be had by anyone rather than just the chosen ones as with the biPhone. It's not the first phone to come out that is better than the iPhone. But it's the first to really compete with iPhone's style and surpass all the other wannabes in its availability to everyone. If HTC gets this message across and prices the phone as reasonably as the iPhone 3G, then it will give the iPhone a run for it's money.

HTC - Touch Phone, PDA Phone, Smartphone, Mobile Computer

Web browser for your phone that shows web pages the same as they look on your computer

2008-08-14T18:28:00.000-07:00

Despite what the video says, it works on Symbian phones as well as Windows Mobile.

Mannequin nipples

2008-08-02T23:40:00.001-07:00

This was a t shirt for sale at the Columbus airport. Why did they feel it necessary to put the nipples on the dummy, poking out of the shirt with no bra? Notice the mannequin has no head or arms or anything else from the waist down, but it has tits with perky nipples. What does that say about what they think of the girls at Ohio State.

Backup everything on your phone to the web automatically and share it

2008-08-02T23:40:00.000-07:00

www.dashwire.com

Here is an awesome free service that backs up all your contacts, pictures, settings, sms messages, bookmarks and more from your phone to the internet automatically. When you get a new phone or a firmware upgrade you can instantly restore your phone back the way it was. You can share your pictures from the site, update your status on social networking sites. You can do a lot of cool things with it. Go check it out.

Vista Runs Better on a Mac

2008-07-26T14:19:00.001-07:00

Macs run Vista better than PCs
Apple spanks competition in unlike-for-like test
By Stewart Meagher: Thursday, 17 April 2008, 10:15 AM
POPULAR MECHANICS has published a shootout between similarly-specced Macs and PCs using popular benchmarking tools and user feedback and has come to a (not very) surprising conclusion.
Glen Derene from PM also used a number of 'real world' tests to find out how the machines. "We tested two all-in-one desktops and two laptops - one Mac and one PC per category - and assembled a panel of testers with a range of experience and preference that ran the gamut from expert users to my wife's stepfather, who, by his own account, had never actually turned on a computer.
"Our testers were asked to set up the computers right out of the box and explore the machines through everyday tasks such as Web surfing, document creation, uploading photos, downloading Adobe Acrobat files and playing music and movies through Media Center and Front Row."
In all fairness, the test was aimed, not at the likes of our readership (before you start getting your slide rules out and shouting at us about the iniquity of the whole thing) but at the average Joe user with little or no interest in pootling about in the inner workings of his operating system, or over-clocking his toaster.
We'll hand you back over to Glen for his conclusion:
"In both the laptop and desktop showdowns, Apple's computers were the winners. Oddly, the big difference didn't come in our user ratings, where we expected the famously friendly Mac interface to shine. Our respondents liked the look and feel of both operating systems but had a slight preference toward OS X.
"In our speed trials, however, Leopard OS trounced Vista in all-important tasks such as boot-up, shutdown and program-launch times. We even tested Vista on the Macs using Apple's platform-switching Boot Camp software... and found that both Apple computers ran Vista faster than our PCs did.
"Simply put, Vista proved to be a more sluggish operating system than Leopard. Our PCs installed some software faster, but in general they were slower in our time trials. Plus, both PCs showed weaker performance on third-party benchmarks than the Macs. Our biggest surprise, however, was that PCs were not the relative bargains we expected them to be. The Asus M51sr costs the same as a MacBook, while the Gateway One actually costs $300 more than an iMac.
"That means for the price of the Gateway you could buy an iMac, boost its hard drive to match the Gateway's, purchase a copy of Vista, and still save $100."
Let's not forget that Popular Mechanics also reckons its readers like to build particle accelerators and spaceships in their garages. u
L'Inq
Popular Mechanics

Skyline Chili

2008-07-24T21:05:00.001-07:00

When I first flew out to Ohio in 2004 to meet Sweetiepie19, who I later started a family with, I was amazed at how many restaurants and stores there were that we didn't have back home in Connecticut. I got to try a few of them but most of them had to wait until I came back permanently. It took almost a year and a half before I got back and now I've lived here almost three years. There are still some places I haven't gone to yet. One of those had been Skyline Chili. This is one of those places that is somewhere between a restaurant and fast food. It's based in Cinncinati and it' famous in Ohio. Well I finally tried it and I feel compelled to warn the public to prevent this chain from stealing money from anyone else.

Sometimes I go to Speedway and get two big hot dogs (actually Polish sausage) for two dollars to hold me over for a few hours. I was in a rare mood for a chili dog so for $1.59 I ordered a coney (midwestern speak for chili dog) smothered in cheese. When I saw what they brought me, my jaw literally dropped.

I don't know if you can tell in the picture but this was a kiddie dog. The actual dog was only slightly longer than my middle finger. Lots of places have footlongs for a dollar or two and I could've two full size hot dogs for 40 cents more at Speedo. Of course the menu makes it look and sound full size but I never imagined they would insult people b charging them that much for a kiddie dog and calling it a coney.

So I got a bowl of chili covered in cheese for 5 bucks and it turned out to be a cup of chili in a deep saucer so that it looked like a bowl even though it was barely deep enough to submerge my spoon. So I paid $7 for a chili dog the right size for my two year old son and a saucer of chili. Think of how much food I could've gotten at Taco Hell or a buffet for that price.

I will say the chili was excellent. It had almost an aromatic quality like Indian cuisine. But it was spicy and it had no beans or vegetables in it. Just beef pureed to meat powder.

So if you've never been to Skyline Chili, hopefully I just saved you from a blatant scam. If you have been there and you go back, you deserve to lose your money for having no self respect and allowing the thieving corporation to get away with what amounts to an attempt at price gouging.

Save web pages to read later

2008-07-22T11:39:00.001-07:00

Ever been at work or school and stumbled upon something interesting on the net but couldn't read it then so you email yourself the link? Well here's a better way to do it I found on makeuseof.com. It's www.laterloop.com. It uses the Google app engine so you can just log into with your Goggle account or create an account there. Of course it's free or I wouldn't be mentioning it.

So what you do is install the Laterloop bookmarklet or browser extension on your web browsers and then when you see a page you want to read later, you just click the bookmarklet or extension button and it saves the content of the page to your account. Then later you can log in and read them at home or wherever or you can go to the mobile version of the site on your phone and read it there. I tried it and it works great. It's just as easy to read on your phone as it is on the computer and the formatting doesn't seem to get too messed up. I think it's easier to use for this than Evernote or MS OneNote because of how well it preserves formatting and the way it displays on your phone. Plus, you can subscribe to your clippings as an rss feed. I can't say enough good about Evernote, I'm a big fan of it, but for this kind of use Later Loop is the best.

Three Consumer Products That Changed the World

2008-07-10T16:57:00.000-07:00

In this era in which technology develops faster than a baseball player’s steroid fueled backne and man-boobs, it is difficult to narrow down the best of the countless products that have excited consumers. There are different criteria for selecting candidates, such as best selling, most innovative, or simply the most fun to use. But since high sales is not an indication of innovation or even quality, and innovation is not necessarily an indication of usefulness or fun, it is better to look at it in a more abstract way. What products have had the greatest impact on our lives? Is it the creepy little Furbies that showed us a glimpse of a future in which our closest friends are objects with personalities? Or is it the iPhone, which cost more than a computer when it was launched yet was capable of less than what a freebie phone could do but still had consumers in an ignorant frenzy? Both of these iconic gadgets were huge sellers and were innovative in different ways, but they did not have the same effect on the cultural landscape. The iPhone, as much as it is an overpriced, over hyped waste of a great advance in touch screen technology, still had a far reaching effect on the cell phone industry’s future. The Furby on the other hand, however it may have haunted our nightmares of living dolls and robots running amok, was little more than a fad and a brief glimpse of what our grandchildren may be playing with. Here we examine three products of the past 25 years that changed the world.
The first is that great savior of video games, the original Nintendo Entertainment System. This unassuming little grey box, commonly known as the NES, made possible the sleek consoles of today that power games with eerily realistic looking characters and worlds, with musical scores written by famous composers and performed by a full orchestra. It ushered in a new era for video games that continues to grow today, with some games such as Halo 3 dwarfing the opening day revenue of most movies. When the NES was released in 1985, the video games industry had peaked and collapsed and was considered by most to be at the end of its popularity. The whole industry of video games had begun to carry a stigma associated with its name. But Nintendo took a different marketing approach by releasing peripherals with the NES that made it seem more like a toy than a video game. It released what it dubbed the Power Glove that was touted as a virtual reality glove, a light gun to shoot at objects on the screen and a pad on which gamers could run in place to make the on screen character run track and field events. The strategy worked and the NES became wildly popular. Other companies began making game consoles and soon the industry was alive again. It is likely that video games wouldn’t be what they are today if Nintendo had not found a way to make the NES the monumental success that it was.
The next consumer icon on our brief countdown sparked a revolution in a way similar to the NES; by changing the way we interact with a technology already established. Ironically, it was the rather primitive iPhone that changed the landscape of the cell phone industry. Yes, primitive is a correct adjective to describe the iPhone. There are 13 different things the iPhone can't do that most other phones on the market can do, at half the cost or less, including things most people take for granted like sending picture messages, and shooting video clips. The iPhone is a remarkable example of what hype and marketing can do for an inferior product and how human nature is to favor "cool" over functional. Although the iPhone is retro in its features, it did play an important role in the evolution of cell phones. Its touch screen technology was previously unparalleled. It reads the electrical energy in your fingertips rather than relying on your finger breaking an infrared beam. This means that two fingers can operate the screen at the same time without confusing the device’s software and it understands the differences between an accidental brush across its screen and an intentional touch. This made the device so cool and so much fun to interact with, and simply easier to operate than anything else gadget geeks had ever seen. Since then, other touch screen technologies have been developed that compare but the iPhone’s popularity forced cell phone manufacturers to examine their design concepts. All the major cell phone carriers have released iPhone clones or are planning to and there are several other variants of touch screen phones now on the market. More are in the works for the more distant future as well and it seems inevitable that touch screen is the way most or all interactive personal devices will be controlled in the future. Nokia even has in the works a new type of morphing plastic, somewhat reminiscent of the liquid metal bot in Terminator 2. Nokia also recently formed the Symbian Foundation, a collaboration of cell phone manufacturers, carriers and software developers working together to create a mobile phone platform to compete with Android and iPhone's OS X interface. The iPhone raised the bar so much that it caused the rest of the industry to revolutionize its design model, rather than continuing to create ever more advanced versions of the same basic concept. So while the iPhone is really nothing more than a basic but extremely cool phone, it can proudly say it changed the world, or at least the world of personal electronics.
The final in our triumvirate of great cash vampires is something that is still at the beginning of its life cycle but seems poised to chang the future of the world and indirectly save countless lives. The gas/electric hybrid car is the beginning of the end for oil companies', and oil producing countries', domination of the world. It is also the beginning of a cure for our pollution problem that we have known for decades would slowly destroy the world yet has been largely disregarded until the current generation. Hybrid cars may not be the final answer in the battle against the robber baron oil companies that hang us by our collective feet and shake until they get every last penny from our pockets, but it certainly is the beginning of the rebellion. Wars are fought over the lucrative oil reserves that all governments want to control. It is impossible to know exactly how many soldiers and bystanders have been killed or had their lives otherwise shattered directly or indirectly in these wars, or how many will face the same fate in the future. But the day is dawning when we will no longer depend on these ill gotten gains for our livelihood. It seems as if the oil companies know this as they have doubled the cost of our desperately needed gasoline in the past decade, presumably to maximize profits while we still have no choice but to pay their price. So let them milk every dollar they can out of us while they can because in the next generation, they will be a shadow of their current glory and we will have saved lives in wars never fought and potentially the planet itself. What other consumer product could dream of boasting that?
The past 25 years have seen the introduction of so much change in technology, it would take a whole set of encyclopedia sized volumes to attempt at discussing all of them and their impact. The changes in this 25 year set far out pace that of any other period in recorded history. If technology continues to change this fast in the next 25 years, there is simply no way the human mind can fathom what is in store for us. These three consumer products are but three mile markers on a highway of technological breakthroughs that crisscrosses the globe. Yet they remain icons that will never be forgotten and whose influence will always be felt; three mile markers that will forever loom large in our rear view mirror.

Taco Hell

2008-07-09T23:39:00.001-07:00

I saw this at a Taco Bell near my home in Ohio and thought it was so funnny I had to share it. I don't know which is funnier; Taco Bell trying to assert itself as authentic Mexican cuisine or the blatant waving of a cartoonish stereotype. It is akin to opening a fried chicken place and putting up spears on the wall. Or maybe opening a place that serves grits and cornbread and put a wife beater and trucker hat on the wall

Use your phone as a portable live webcam

2008-07-09T22:42:00.000-07:00

Mobile carriers worst nightmare has come true, thanks to Qik
Posted Jul 7th 2008 9:30AM by Joey CelisFiled under: Video, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Web services, iPhone
Live video streaming from your mobile phone is probably a mobile carrier worst nightmare simply because the amount of bandwidth video consumes. And leading that nightmare is Qik.
Simply put, Qik takes your mobile phone's built in video camera and transforms it into a webcam that connects to the Qik site where it will host live feeds of your video, as it happens. That's right, people can now watch you make a fool of yourself anywhere you go.
We were able to test the Qik service on our 3G connected Windows Mobile phone. The installation was quick and only required a few SMS messages be sent back and forth to authorize our account. Once configured just launch the application and your video will automatically appear on the Qik website. Video quality is acceptable and we only experienced slight delays due in part to our mobile connection and location.
Once you end your transmission the live video is then archived to the site for later viewing. Of course like any good site, they offer 2 different privacy settings for your feeds, public and private. At least this way not everyone in the world can see that you haven't cleaned up your room.
Currently in alpha, Qik supports a handful of Windows Mobile and Symbian phones with iPhone testing starting soon. We hope that future updates to the service will also include the ability to adjust video size and image quality. They do recommend an unlimited data plan and in the few days that we used the service we would also recommend it as well.

(my username on Qik is Qikstand)

History's Myths

2008-07-08T22:29:00.000-07:00

Seated upon flat wooden benches and huddled into every corner of the crowded meeting house, dozens of people stood and sat transfixed on the words of a great man. This man’s name will remain in the collective memory of millions of people in every generation throughout the rest of recorded history for this one moment of brilliance and spirit. As Patrick Henry completed his stirring speech that inspired all there to rise up and fight for their freedom, he spoke the words for which he will be remembered forever, “Give me liberty or give me death!” Henry’s legacy is one of leadership and brilliance, tarnished only by the fact that the act for which he is best remembered never actually occurred. This story that we have all been taught since childhood is likely a fiction, as it was written by William Writ in 1817, 42 years after this alleged speech. This is only one of countless examples of stories we accept as fact because it was in a reputable source; a history textbook. But sadly, many of the stories from our nation’s heritage that inspire us and give us so much pride are in fact works of fiction or distorted truth.

Historic accounts of the American Revolution in particular are full of inspirational stories of heroism and perseverance in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity. It is arguably one of the greatest periods in world history with the greatest impact on the future of the world. And it is the source of great national pride and the very definition of what it means to be an American. There are countless inspirational stories and heroes deified from that period. We exaggerate or even fabricate our heroes’ accomplishments and ignore their faults and weaknesses that make them human.

Paul Revere was one of the greatest icons of the revolution, known best for his midnight rides through the countryside shouting, “the British are coming!” to awake otherwise unsuspecting farmers and villagers from their slumber to take arms and rise up against the approaching imperial oppressors. Without his efforts, our militia men may have been caught off guard and the war may have been over before it even began. In reality, however, Revere was not the only midnight rider to arouse our makeshift soldiers into action. This is a fact ignored in the popular account of the event, written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1861, which also distorted every other fact about the legend to make the story more interesting for his book. Though many historians know this account to be largely fictional, it is still included in most textbooks, probably because it is more interesting than the truth. In 1996, David Hackett Fischer published a book about Revere’s ride that gave a more accurate account. Fischer wrote that Revere was in fact one of several volunteers who rode out and rang bells, shooting their guns into the air and doing whatever else was necessary to awake and alert the militia men. William Dawes and Samuel Prescott are two other patriots that history book authors have begun to include in recent texts. It is also unlikely that the volunteer soldiers were caught off guard. This incursion of British troops was a move they had been anticipating and for which they had been preparing for months prior and they were ready to go when the call came. But Longfellow’s portrait of prose depicting Revere as a solitary hero is dramatic and thus has persevered for well over a century.

Another folkloric hero from the Revolutionary War was the woman known as Molly Pitcher. Molly was the wife of an artillery gunner. Molly and her husband served in the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778, which was fought in sweltering heat. Many of the soldiers were collapsing from exhaustion and dehydration brought on by the intense heat and aggravated by their heavy woolen uniforms. Molly ran and fetched pitcher after pitcher of cool spring water for the soldiers to keep them going and cooled the guns so they could continue operation. At some point her husband fell wounded and his canon was going to be pulled from battle because there was simply no one to operate it. So Molly manned the gun herself and kept it firing on the British troops. She is also said to have carried a wounded soldier on her back off the battle field and away from approaching British soldiers. For her heroics, General Washington made her a non-commissioned officer and she became known as Sergeant Molly. Text books say Molly’s name was Mary Hayes or Mary Hays McCauly but this name was only given to the legend in 1876 at the centennial celebration and only on the word of an event promoter from Carlisle, Pennsylvania where Hayes was from. Paintings of Molly Pitcher were painted in the 19th century, not the product of a first hand account. So the validity of this legend is no more certain than any other folk legend.

Another female hero from the American Revolution is Betsy Ross. As history tells us, she received a visit in June, 1776 from George Washington, Robert Morris and Betsy’s uncle George Ross. She demonstrated how to cut a star out of fabric with one snip of the scissors if the fabric is folded right. She was asked to design and stitch the first American flag. She is also idolized for her perseverance despite losing more than one spouse to battle in the fight against the British and her business savvy. She is considered one of the earliest and greatest independent women who led an exemplary life and demonstrated what women are capable of. Though much of her legacy is truthful and she is deserving of the respect she has been paid, and she was a flag maker, most historians now doubt that she sewed the first flag. Betsy’s grandson was the first to credit her with stitching the flag. He told this story in 1870 and even he was unsure of the story’s validity. It is also rarely mentioned that whether or not Betsy sewed the stars and stripes, it was not the first American flag. There were several flags that militia men and other colonials waved as they marched into battle before the current design was universally accepted.

Even objects and locales have been placed upon a pedestal under false pretenses. The very symbol of freedom, the Liberty Bell, has been deified based on fictitious stories. We were taught as children that when the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, the Liberty Bell in the steeple of Independence Hall (then called the State House) was rung to mark the event. As the story goes, there was an elderly bellman in the steeple waiting for word of the Continental Congress’ declaration. Secretly he began to lose faith that Congress would act. When at last word came, the man’s grandson shouted “ring, grandfather, ring!” and as the old man rang the bell, the townspeople all came to the State House to hear the first reading of the Declaration of Independence. The people rejoiced the creation of a new nation. Although I was not able to find any texts attributing the famous crack to this event, I was taught in school that the bell cracked at this occasion and never rang again. But this tale was a fictional short story written by George Lippard for The Saturday Currier in 1847. Though there is some debate about when the crack first appeared, the final crack that rendered it unusable occurred in 1846 when a group of abolitionists rang it to protest slavery. In fact the very title of Liberty Bell was bestowed upon it by the abolitionist movement, who began using it as a symbol in their anti slavery pamphlets in the early half of the 19th century. Even the idea of July 4 as our nation’s birthday is somewhat arbitrary for several reasons. First, there were some 90 other declarations of independence the year before that were drafted and adopted in various colonies. Second, several counties had already ousted British rule and were already governing themselves. Third, the Declaration of Independence had to travel around to some of the people who signed it and that took months. Finally, the colonists still had to win the war so it could be argued that the nation was not truly born until the Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783 or when the Continental Congress ratified it on January 14, 1784.

Aside from idolizing false heroes and worshipping at the altars of false icons, history books also deliberately exclude or falsify accounts of events that are embarrassing to our heritage. To this day, a monument still stands in lower Manhattan that depicts a rather sinister looking Dutchman passing a handful of beads to a Native American. The engraving describes this event in 1626 when the Dutch bought Manhattan Island from the Canarsies for $24 worth of beads. However, the Dutch traded $2400 worth of kettles, axes, guns, blankets and other valuable goods to the tribe for the right to settle there. But the Canarsies did not own the island and had no claim to it. They lived only on the northern tip of it. The island was inhabited by the Weckquaesgeek tribe and they were not consulted before this deal was made. Rather than spend more on this transaction, the Dutch simply began a genocide campaign with the help of the Canarsies. By the 1640’s when the Dutch had nearly exterminated the Weckquaesgeeks, they finally cut the survivors in on the deal and paid them too. It is far easier to depict the natives as gullible and foolish than to depict the white settlers as the savage killers they were.
It is likely that a large percentage of information in history books is mostly accurate. However, these examples make it ever more evident that the primary lesson we can learn from our textbooks is less the material in them and more a lesson in life. That is that we cannot afford to take anything we read in any source of printed material, nor anything we hear, as fact no matter how reputable the source. It teaches us to search for answers ourselves and to always question authority. All information originates from a flawed human.

The blog title

2008-07-06T23:04:00.000-07:00

I tried several different titles for the blog but all were taken. I should try them later and see if they actually are real blogs. Most sites you go to, when trying to create an email address, username or web page address will tell you that 90% of your attempted titles are taken. It is said that there is no such thing as a truly original thought; that somebody, somewhere at some time already thought of some variant of anything you can cook up in your head. But still I find it hard to believe that all of those very unique usernames I came up with have already been used by somebody. Perhaps my blog title ideas are not truly unique but given the web's history of falsely telling you that everything is taken, I'm not so sure. Nonetheless, I thought I'd share some of them here.

The Throne Room: This was my first choice. I spent a couple days trying to think of a title and finally settled on this, only to find I could not use it. I chose it because men do their best thinking on the toilet (also called the throne) and often this is where their best mind morsels come from.

Mind Morsels: See above.

Brain Droppings: The title of a George Carlin book that seemed appropiate here.

The Reporter's Notebook: When I wrote for a newspaper from 2000 to 2002, we used to write pieces called Reporter's Notebook. It was the one place in the paper where we could write about whatever we wanted from our own biased point of view. They were fun to write and let us flex our creative muscles a little more than newspaper journalism allows. My blog posts here will be along the same lines as the kind of stuff I used to write or wanted to write in my Reporter's Notebooks.

Others titles I tried: Brain Flatulence, Brain Farts, The Scribe, The Thinkwell, The Thinkspot, The Think Tank.

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