You Can Rely on the Stupidity of the General Public

If you ever want to see examples of supreme ignorance simply read the comments on YouTube videos that refer to anything political.

Eagerly waiting the approaching end of humanity.*

sigh,
DC Dan

*This is a reference to global warming and not some plot.

How Do I Get to "teh" Stadium?

I understand that DC can serve a confusing place for tourists. I empathize with their confusion about shittily labeled roads and the quadrant system. As such if asked nicely or if I see a confused tourist I will happily provide them directions.

But really all of this non-sense over confused people (presumably locals) is just plain stupid.

Sigh, maybe I'll just start telling the tourists that if they get into the Capitol building, they should really take the time to look at the Oval Office, which is right under the big dome.

Posting Twitter Messages to Your Blog

Posting your twitter status to your blog as posts for each one is fucking annoying, because if I wanted your twitter statuses filling up space in my RSS feeds, I would I don't know subscribe to the RSS feed on your FUCKING twitter page.

From a Science Blog I Read

Things like this upset me, sigh
Putting women in their proper place.

This Seems Like a Good Idea

For the record DC Dan, has never done and does not condone the use of cocaine.
In D.C., Price of Cocaine Soars as Supply Declines

There are a few quotes from the story that bother me:
"D.C. police investigators said that they had no statistical evidence to back the DEA's claim but that dealers appear to be fighting over a dwindling product. They said that could be contributing to a recent rise in other crimes, such as homicides and robberies. When supplies are scarce, some dealers turn to other crimes to make money, said D.C. police Inspector Brian Bray, head of the narcotics branch."

Okay so when coke dealers are dealing coke, the only people getting hurt are the people using cocaine, they damage themselves and move money through the economy without paying taxes. When the supply of cocaine is scarce, people who may or may not be involved in the cocaine may be killed or robbed. Now the way I see it I'd rather have people coked out, than than get mugged. I'm not sure that the government should be proud of the fact that a GOOD sign is that the coke market has been affected is an increase in violent crime. Perhaps legalization and taxation is a better approach, I know some tobacco farmers in Virginia and the Carolinas who probably need some new crops to replace tobacco. We learned this lesson rather quickly with the 18th Amendment why can't we learn it with other contraband.

Sigh.

Cross Australia Off List of Countries to Move to or Visit

Australia to spend $189 million on anti-porn tech initiative

Really countries that ban porn are foolish.
One can always make their own. Two you won't be able to effectively ban it. Three porn drives Internet innovation, think about it, payment over the web, image and movie compression and streaming video all were pretty much advanced by the porn industry. Fourth, I have still yet to have anyone show evidence that porn is actually harmful.

sigh

Why Some Phone are Loved by Nerds or:

Why Some Phone are Loved by Nerds or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Open platforms.

As most people know I'm a phone nerd, ever since I spent a year doing wireless research for a government agency several years back, I've been pretty in touch with the whole wireless scene and have a good idea of what's going on. From doing all of this research I've been a huge fan of Sony Ericsson and Nokia and for the last five years I've exclusively used their phones. One of the best features for these phone is that YOU can easily get FREE development environments for their phones and they have detailed specs and white papers, they want you to make apps for their phones. This also applies to Windows Mobile and Motorola but I don't really use them so I can't comment.

A few months ago I broke ranks and bought a Helio Ocean. It has some cool features and the service plans are reasonable, but it main weakness is the lack of apps. When I say lack of apps, I mean a real shortage. If they exist I can't find them and I'm not just talking about apps for the phone I'm putting the computer side down as well. I knew going in that I wouldn't be able to sync with my Mac, but I was okay with that. but what I did think would work was syncing via XP in Parallels, but there doesn't appear to an app to do it, I installed what was on their site but it doesn't seem to do anything except for recognize the phone as mass storage device. Which doesn't really do shit because dropping mp3's and movies to the folders doesn't work either. So on a whim, I tried http://developer.helio.com there is a site, but you have to be approved to develop for them. So I wrote the email address asking for an invite as my current employer develops mobile apps hoping to get an invite.

The response made it clear as to why there aren't many apps for the Ocean. To get access to the site, I'd need to do the following. One pitch them my application idea. They'd have to approve the concept internally and then I'd have to sign an NDA to just to get access to the tool kit from which point I could then figure out if we even have the ability/desire to write these apps. That is an awful lot of hoops to make one jump through for people to write apps that will help sell THEIR phone and THEIR service. I think it is a bad decision overall and will hurt them in the long run, because the keyboard makes a lot of apps very attractive. Think ssh, vnc, an Opera browser and integrated IM client the list goes on.

Sigh