Uneducated Journalism: Why Apple's Porn Purge of Sex-Themed Apps isn't a Smart Move (ABC News)

This is the epitome of uneducated journalism and pandering to stupidity.

First off, the uneducated part.  Evidently the author hasn't read around at the thousands of news articles discussing apps that were removed from the App Store that were not used to deliver porn, but to, say, sell swimsuits.  The author also didn't look at another article from the same magazine, PC World, that brings up the fact that Sports Illustrated and Playboy are still available as apps in the app store.  If Playboy isn't within their criteria of "sex-themed", then I would question what criteria they are using.

Second off, the pandering to stupidity.  Sometimes people must understand that in the wild world of life and the Internet, there is going to be porn and smut.  It isn't Apple's job to police that, mostly because everyone's values are different.  Apple SHOULD compartment questionable apps, like Playboy and the SI Swimsuit edition (perhaps by using age controls and a special section of the app store).

I know the big argument to this is "Apple is hosting the App Store and therefore can control what's in it".  That argument has a few flaws which I will discuss in a future post.

Why I Carry a Blackberry and NOT an iPhone

This is pathetic.  Apple must sell to absolute "prudes" to call simplybeach.com's bikini pictures "overtly sexual".

I carry a Blackberry because I don't want Stevie controlling what I put on MY phone.

Link to full story: AppleInsider | Swimwear seller hit by Apple's removal of 'sexual' apps.

Software Development: On Testing and Comparing to Old Versions

One of my major tasks at work has been porting our old Fortran based distribution and mode choice software to Cube Voyager.  During this process, I have been testing and re-testing to ensure that my results from Voyager match the results that came out of Fortran.

The reason I am continually testing to match is because despite being old and having some bugs that I've had to fix, the mode choice process is technically sound.  If I started from scratch, I probably would not have done something nearly as in-depth as this.

One of the other tasks I've done was a new transit model.  Our old transit network, skimming, and loading models were in TranPlan, which is way old and outdated.  While programming the Voyager upgrade, I did settings and parameters to get things in the range of the what was coming out of the old TranPlan model.  This means that when I actually get the new mode choice ready, I should be close to still having a calibrated model (not! and why in a paragraph!).

The experience with the new mode choice and distribution has enabled me to find bugs in the old mode choice and distribution software.  The bugs include:

• Incorrect file reading format


• Failure to reset certain variables to zero causing transit trips to be assigned when there is technically no transit available


• Potentially incorrect script to calculate auto operating cost in park-n-ride and kiss-n-ride situations

That "not!" from above has to do with that very first bullet.  There was an extra field in the read script causing a fixed file format input of:

ZONE    HH1    HH2    HH3    HH4
  10     33    147    301    132

To be read as:

ZONE    HH1    HH2    HH3    HH4
  10   33.1   47.3    1.1     32

This caused transit trips to drop by about 25%.  Re-calibration, here I come!

Tags: cube, voyager, fortran, programming, software, testing

Google Buzz... Good or Bad?

I've been reading a lot about Google Buzz.  I've heard more than I've tried, but it sounds like a replacement for Twitter, just integrated with GMail.

I haven't considered using it.  I just dropped MySpace (which is crap anyway), and I am active on Facebook and Twitter, and semi-active on LinkedIn and Flickr.

My concern with it is that based on some posts on Lifehacker (see this post and this post)that the security settings are difficult and not always intuitive - there was a post that likened Buzz to a megaphone.  Reading the comments, it sounds like Buzz is doing some stuff that it shouldn't (posting tweets in conversations)... the comments on the two posts are quite interesting and worth a read as much as the articles.

Me?  I'm not passing judgement, but I've turned it off.

Turning off Buzz: log into GMail, scroll to the bottom, and click on the link in dinky print that says "turn off buzz".

"Geek Chic" for the home: IP PBX

I've been thinking about what is really cool and what is really a fad in computing. Fad = iPad.  Cool = IP PBX, especially if you have a new house.

Consider this, particularly if you have purchased a home built in the last few years.  Most low-voltage wiring companies (Guardian, for example) run only two types of wire, RG-6 and CAT-5.  I personally think it has something with the (lack of) intelligence of their hiring pool, but that's another issue altogether.  However, with all the phone lines being run as CAT-5 cable, you can easily replace the phone jacks with network jacks, and you can purchase IP phones for about $100 each.  The PBX, normally the expensive part of the equation, can be done with a halfway (only halfway by modern standards) machine running Asterisk open source IP PBX.  Heck, just about any geek has an extra computer collecting dust somewhere.

Imagine how much geek envy your friends would have when their calls are routed via an auto-attendant to the proper ring or phone, and when your spouse transfers their call to another phone.

iPad = Crap

I wasn't going to do it, but I will.  I think the iPad is crap.

No Storage

Looking at how much of my hard drive is devoted to my iTunes Library (40 GB) and thinking about what I would actually do with something that I don't have to squint to look at, I would want more.  More Movies, probably.  More 1.5 GB movies, likely (I looked at the three movies I've ripped to my hard drive, and they range from 1.3 to 1.67 GB).  I could run out of space on even the 64 GB (most storage) model pretty quickly.  So why, then would I buy something with such limited storage?  Hell, I can get an iPod with 160 GB of storage!  Why can't I even get half of that on the iPad?

Unreplaceable Battery

Why does Apple keep creating products that have batteries that are damn near impossible to change?  Does Stevie really expect us to buy more stuff when the batteries go bad?  This is probably going to be like the iPod and the Mac Mini that are extremely difficult to open?

App Store?

I'm guessing that most apps on the app store were written with the iPhone and iPod Touch in mind.  That being said, why then, would I want an app designed for a screen that is something like 1.5"x3" on anything larger than maybe 2"x4"?  Heck, FB for Blackberry is great... ON MY BLACKBERRY!  It would completely suck on my MacBook Pro.  This "feature" isn't one at all - it basically says that there are no apps for this thing (other than a few that Apple brought out) and it isn't going to get better for a while (if it ever does).

No Card Reader?

When I heard that Stevie was showing photos in the media event, I figured that he would have the wherewithal to put a minimum of a CF and a SD card slot on the thing.  Guess I was wrong.  Not even a USB port for those that have their camera cable.

My Expectations

I EXPECTED an Apple tablet to be similar in form (but with a reasonably easy to replace battery) running a special version of Snow Leopard that would allow me to run programs like Safari, Mail, iPhoto, iMovie, Quicktime+iTunes, iCal, Address Book, and iWork.  I EXPECTED something that would have plenty of storage for all my music, movies, and pictures.  I'm not expecting something that could run Parallels, or have a Terminal interface... basically not a desktop replacement, but something better than an overpriced e-book reader.

Word Cannot Exit

I've heard of software unexpectedly closing.  I've never heard of software that, due to an error, cannot close.