It doesn’t matter who you vote for; just register as an independent. What’s most important is that we send the message that we are tired of accepting a two-party system that’s subsidized by corporations and special interests. The Democrats and Republicans claim to be polar opposites, but they share a desire to maintain the current system at all costs. They are the same.

They will never have true debates because real discussion would reveal how impotent both parties are. That’s why they ostracize third party candidates. People like Mike Gravel and Ron Paul have nothing to lose by bringing up the issues that matter and exposing cowardice inherant in the system. That’s why they are feared and shut out.

So I ask you to reject this. I ask you to not support any particular candidate, but to overtly reject the corrupt two-party system with an independent registration. And remember, this doesn’t effect who you can vote for — it just sends the message that we’re ready to hear debate that’s unfiltered by greed.

I was in line at 9:00a.m. in the morning on launch day. At 6p.m. I was 5th into the store and first to leave with one, and my device was online by 6:35p.m. The wait was worth something as an experience in and of itself; I met some cool people and had a good time. As it turns out, it was not even necessary to be there that early; everyone in line at 6:00p.m. got one (over 50 people at least), although the whole city did sell out on the first day.

My initial thoughts are perfectly in sync with my previously published opinions on the device. Here’s what I said over a month ago:

My point, which I feel is Apple’s direct strategy with this device, is that you can actually blow away the market without playing the features game. The concept being that it’s possible to actually win with fewer features as long as you do each of them extremely well.

…and that’s precisely what I think they have done. For the masses it comes down to user experience, and iPhone simply dominates in this arena. The core functions of phone, media player, and Internet device are done in such a superior way (with caveats) that the thing simply plows right through people’s doubts when they handle one.

I’ve showed some people mine while looking for a case today and caused at least a few orgasms. Most notable, however are the reactions from those who had already decided not to get one. I’ve had a few people tell me that they weren’t getting one due to the cost, and then after seeing what it could do (and holding one) they immediately began planning how to get one. Their minds were instantly changed. Among those who’ve I’ve seen get blown away by the device are Sprint and Verizon reps and the owner of multiple Helio stores in the area.

It’s just that compelling.

For those curious about the keyboard issue — my experience seems to mirror those of most reviewers. It seems precarious at first, but if you just attempt to type at your normal speed you’ll be rewarded by the intelligence of the software. I heard this and never even messed with the single finger approach; I just went ahead and pretended I was already comfortable. One thing I notice is that (for me, at least) entering special characters, numbers, etc. is far harder on the iPhone than regular keyboards, while just writing regular text is quite fast (possibly superior). In fact, I think I’m already as fast or faster on it than on my Blackberry (but with more chance for abysmal failure).

Ok. I wanted to set the tone as positive before doing this next part so this isn’t confused as an iPhone-bashing post. Now on to the real content of the post — the downsides. These are shown in order of severity.

1. I can’t create a sound profile like I can on the Blackberry so that phone calls will be audible while all other sound events are silent. This is very important for me when I sleep, as I’d like to be able to receive calls when traveling while not being awoken for email alerts.
2. Making calls takes too many steps. I understand why, and I don’t think it’s going to bother me much long-term, but it sucks that the simplicity of the interface had to lead to more steps. I’m not saying it was a poor decision — I don’t think it was — but I’d like to see an improvement here, somehow.
3. EDGE sucks. My area evidently has not seen the speed bumps yet that others saw on launch day (many are seeing 200Kbps on EDGE now), and my tests have yielded around 100Kbps. Sprint and Verizon make that look silly with speeds of over 400Kbps. Again, I understand, but it still sucks really bad. WiFi is nice, but it’s not nearly as ubiquitous as many would like to pretend.
4. I said before I was worried about the battery. Well, I still am. I had a full charge at 8:00a.m; it’s now 8:00p.m. — and my battery looks to be very close to producing a warning (probably around 20%). Granted, I’ve been basically showing off intensive features all day, as well as messing with the thing myself, but still. I think I could do the same with my Blackberry and still eat only half a charge — if that. I just don’t see myself being comfortable going two full days on a single charge — which is my standard for a good battery. If I can’t be confident about two days, then I have to charge every day. And that’s NOT a good battery — I don’t care how many hours of talk-time someone gets in a lab. So, we’ll see how it goes after things calm down.

   Update: the device died at 10:00p.m., so that’s 14 off-and-on hours of assorted types of use. I think that’s bad news. I should have gotten two days out of that charge.

So — as a summary — I think the device (surprisingly) met the hype. It’s truly sick. But there are clear issues that need to be addressed either in software updates or version 2 of the device. In a single sentence: the device is so impressive that I barely notice the negatives. We’ll see how I feel as time goes on.:

I’m quite worried about what’s going to happen in the sport when someone gets really hurt. All this momentum is behind it right now, but when someone gets truly injured the media outcry might be enough to kill it.

It won’t be enough to literally kill of the whole industry, but they’ll nerf it to the point of not being MMA anymore. Ugh…I hope the sport’s promoters are preparing for this. It’s guaranteed to happen; the only question is how bad it’ll be.

Amazing.

[ Link: DMF At The Pixelplanet ]

Accepted wisdom says we should respect moderates and look down on fundamentalists. This is supposedly because the moderates know how to pick out the good parts of their Holy books and ignore the bad, whereas the crazy folks can’t tell the difference.

I still agree with this in practice because moderates are less of an immediate danger to the world, but philosophically I now have a new perspective on the issue. My new view is that fundamentalists should at least be given some respect for actually following their books.

People seem to think it’s ok to pick and choose what to follow, but the Bible clearly disagrees:

Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. — Deuteronomy 4:2

Let’s review what the Bible demands as punishments for breaking these rules:

Leviticus 24:16: And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death.

Exodus 31:15: Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.

Exodus 21:17: He that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death.

Leviticus 20:13: If a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death.

Leviticus 20:10: And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.

Let’s be clear — this is not some garbage I made up, and it’s not something pulled out of context. These are standalone commands from God, written in the Bible, for Christians to obey unquestioningly. That doesn’t mean obey them unless there’s a law against it, or obey them unless they make you feel bad.

Remember, it specifically says not to take anything away from these commands, and keep in mind that God knew what the future would look like. If He intended that there be any wiggle room he would have included something to the effect of, “Unless there is a law against it later…”

Quite simply, God has commanded that people die for working on Saturday, sleeping with someone other than their spouse, being gay, talking back to their parents, or saying “Jesus” or “God” when they are upset. If you as a Christian have seen those commands and have judged them unacceptable due to a man-made, secular morality then you are rejecting God outright. You have consciously chosen to place man’s laws above God.

Make no mistake — this is not simply a failure to live up to expectations, this is active rejection. This is so-called “religious” people making their own personal judgment that the word of God should not be followed because it interferes with their morality.

The point, of course, is not that moderate Christians should be killing people. What this shows us is that moderate Christians already reject God for precisely the same reason that Atheists do – because the teachings in the Bible don’t make sense.

Once you figure out that God really is demanding that all these people die, and that it’s quite easy for you to see that this is morally out of the question, it should be pretty easy to get to the next step:

So if that ugliness is supposed to be the literal word of God himself, and it’s clearly wrong, how can I trust anything in there?

Exactly. And that really only leaves two options for kind, thoughtful religious moderates:

1. Realize that human laws and knowledge are contrary to God. Join a “community” that owns lots of land that separates itself from the evils of human society and devotes itself to the true path. In short, become a fundamentalist.or…
2. Accept that the Bible was written by superstitious men, and that the beautiful parts (of which there are many) can be incorporated into your life without having to subscribe to the fantasy of a God that wants people to be killed for working on Saturday.

There is something of a revolution taking place in music right now. A handful of bands have come out in recent years that are fresh to the degree of revolution. Looking for similarities I find 1. extreme technical prowess, 2. lyrical depth, and 3. unorthodoxy.

Here is a short list, ordered by my preference, of the bands that I personally feel belong in this category:

• Mars Volta
• Forward Russia
• Coheed and Cambria

If you are into “musician music” and are not familiar with these three bands, you have not yet been born. I think these bands are resetting standards and possibly even creating a new class of music altogether.

This is an absolute must for anyone who struggles with explaining RSS to muggles.

[ Video: RSS In Plain English ]

By now we’re all quite familiar with the Bush administration’s stance on security. It essentially boils down to the best defense being a good offense. Or, to put it less philosophically, people can’t attack you if they don’t exist. The problem with this line is that it gives insufficient weight to reality.

Let us start with a formula for calculating risk in the information security world. Risk, in it’s most basic form, is the chance of something bad happening. It can be calculated in the following way:

Risk = Threat x Vulnerability x Asset Worth

As I said, this is an information security formula, but it translates quite well to security in general. When we evaluate the variables here they materialize in the following way:

Threat = Bad Guys x Weapon Power Vulnerability = How Easy It Is To Attack Us Asset Worth = How Important The Targets Are To Our Livelihood

What Effect Is Bush Having On This Formula?

To make positive change we have to accurately gauge the effects of our actions on reality. Unfortunately, this is the part that the current administration is getting wrong. Let’s assign arbitrary numbers to these variables in order to demonstrate the difference between what they think they are doing vs. what they are actually doing. I’ve removed asset value since it stays relatively constant.

The Neocon Viewpoint

Pre-Bush: Threat (5) x Vulnerability (9) = 45% Risk Post-Bush: Threat (5) x Vulnerability (5) = 25% Risk

(-40% risk)

Basically, they think they’ve reduced Al-Quaeda’s ability to commit acts of terror against us, while they’ve simultaneously hardened our critical assets against attack. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

Reality

Pre-Bush: Threat (4) x Vulnerability (9) = 45% Risk Post-Bush: Threat (10) x Vulnerability (8) = 80% Risk

(+ 45% risk)

The truth of the matter is that we’ve massively increased the number of people who want to do us harm in the world (threat). This adds to the threat against us infinitely more than we can possibly hope to reduce our vulnerability.

In short, we live in a free and open society that is vulnerable by its very nature. In such a society it is impossible to keep people who want to hurt us from doing so. There are too many malls, too many children, and too many ways to cause us harm.

The only way to stop people from hurting you is to make it so that they don’t want to.

Conclusion

The solution is for us to become a better country. We have to treat people with respect and stop intruding in their affairs. This is not isolationism, it’s common courtesy. Only once we’ve started down that path — a new path — will we be able to positively effect the operative variable in the risk equation (threat).

In other words, the crucial point here is the sheer number of people with the will to cause us harm — not specific measures aimed to stop how the attacks will occur. The current policy is failing because of this misunderstanding, and I hope someone figures this out sooner rather than later.:

This article argues that Facebook is where the upper, more-educated classes are, and that the lower classes are still using MySpace. I’ve seen anecdotal evidence of this as well.

Another interesting fact the article pointed out was the fact that most U.S. Military officers use FaceBook while the enlisted troops use MySpace. Again, no surprise there.

I personally have both and don’t use either.

[ Link: MySpace and FaceBook ]

If you’ve never been emotionally affected by opera before, this will likely be your first time.

(This is Paul Potts’s first audition on a British talent show called “Britain’s Got Talent”. He’s a mobile phone salesman who was completely unknown before this moment. Note: this man is not to be confused with Pol Pot — despite how the British pronounce his name)