Rampid Byter

Doesn’t seem like too much of a difficult question, but when asked to developers some sit with blank stares. I’ve listened to that question be asked in three interviews this past week, and I really didn’t hear any decent answers. One candidate actually asked us what we do to stay current after a long pause without answering the question.

I recall when Katie Couric asked Sarah Palin what magazines she read to stay current. I thought that was a silly question to begin with because who actually reads printed news material anymore? Still seems like a question you either know, because you do, or don’t because you’ve never tried to. Those people who don’t know often pause, mumble, and just in general seem very confused.

Just thought that was an interesting take away from this week’s interviews.

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Ditched Sprint. I’m saving $70 a month with Cricket’s unlimited text and unlimited talk. My new phone service plus iPad data plan costs exactly $70 per month combined, and still ends up with me saving $40 per month compared to Sprint. If Sprint had the EVO in stock I might be talking about my EVO instead of a new carrier.

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I was in a Chinese buffet today near my new work, and whenever a worker walked around to refill my drink the expression on the waiter’s faces was one as if they’ve just been to a funeral. It wasn’t just a single waiter. I’ve never seen such an unhappy brood of workers in my life. That struck me in that every single Chinese buffet I’ve been in I don’t think I can ever recall even a single smile on anyone’s faces. I think the only time I’ve even seen a hint of a smile was when cashing out to leave when asked whether everything was alright.

Is it me or is being a waiter in a Chinese restaurant the most depressing job in the world?

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I went through the enlistment process for the US Army. There was a fair bit of paperwork that required guaranteeing a person isn’t gay. I do know that much. When I was at boot camp there were two guys dismissed from the army for having sex in a bathroom who were caught by a drill sergeant. They both had women at home and most of us suspected that it was a ploy just to get out of boot camp. Let’s face it besides the occasional nightly beatings, constant exercise, and coming to grips with being “owned” for the first time in a persons life boot camp makes or breaks a person.

The thing I think is nice is that there IS a “don’t ask don’t tell” policy. In a room full of 148 guys we knew the outright gay ones. The sometimes perverted ones who’d stand in the group shower leaning against the wall starring at the constant flow of sausage as it passed by the door. We knew. We all knew. Not saying there weren’t a few that we didn’t know, which there probably was. Every person walking through those Army entrance doors were different. The one thing that was the same at the end of the day was they were all soldiers.

The problem isn’t so much that you’re not allowed to be gay. Nope, not a problem at all with most so long as you’re not a creepy son of a gun and keep it to yourself. The biggest problem is that sodomy is a violation of the army code of conduct. Anyone caught getting even a blow job violated policy. The Army has regulation for everything. Seriously, with sex you’re only allowed to have sex in the missionary position. I had to sit through a class where we actually were told how to have sex, and were instructed that if we deviated from the acceptable position be smart don’t take pictures. They will bring disciplinary actions against you. If you’re gay it’s kind of obvious you’re not going to be having missionary sex. At least I'm not informed enough to know whether that is indeed possible for gays, and honestly don’t feel particularly compelled to Google that.

In my opinion I don’t believe that policy should be repealed or changed in any way. Having a formal policy in place won’t change how people are treated. I understand it will keep those who are ousted from being discharged. I’d ideally just let the person’s service record distinguish whether they were let go in those cases. The thing that bothers me personally is everyone is up in arms about the ‘right to be gay’. I think if you had a room full of naked women walk into a shower to find a naked guy standing there watching them the consensus would be to kick the guy out. Why should that be any different if it happened to be a lesbian standing there instead? It’s still just not right to give that one person a free pass. Not saying there may not be others among them who are gay but they’re not outright displaying it. It’s all about work as a team, act like a team, or get out.

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I’m talking mainly in regards to a story about a cross-dressing teen who was told by the school that he could not wear a dress to prom. This is not a new phenomenon where gay, bi, aardvark, or whatever sexual preference individual decides to wear something outside of the bounds of an established dress code. Guys dressing as girls, girls as guys, or somewhere in-between the mix on the lines of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

What gets me is that in every case I've seen crop up on the news each of these individuals who are challenging the time-old dress codes all chant the same dang thing, “everyone should be treated equally.” That astounds me as they are indeed getting treated equal to everyone else bound by the dress code. Every last student attending the prom is bound by the same dress code. They are all treated equally. If you do not abide by the dress-code you do not attend. Simple as that.

If I were to take a job working in a formal business setting where the dress-code of the company is established in the employee manual as what I could and could not wear. Does it make sense for me to put on fishnets, dye my hair green, and go into work wearing a bra thinking I wouldn’t get fired? Better yet would it make any more difference what my sexual preference is? I’d be fired. I would be fired because everyone is treated equally. If i break the dress-code, regardless of sexual preference, I’d get fired. Equally so would be anyone else who decided one morning they wanted to be treated equally by making a statement via wardrobe resulting in the same outcome.

At least in this case Ellen isn’t bringing the individual onto the morning talk show, applauding their individuality, and excusing it as fighting for a ‘cause’. Better yet this person isn’t getting a fat check from Ellen for their courageous statement. At least not yet. What is up with this country? Why on Earth do people think this has anything to do with equality? That’s basically the fit-all excuse to allow an individual to get what they, the individual, want.

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Out of the box the iPad was ready to go, short of requiring the device to first be connected to an iTunes ready system, but still it was fully charged. I synced the iPad, registered it, and off I went to add the device to my Mac address allow list on my network. All in all the same exact experience I had with the iPod Touch I bought some months ago.

Speaking of iPod Touch. The new iPad totally dwarfs the iPod. I could probably stack a few of the buggers on the screen of the iPad and not really match the viewable area. Though I admit the iPad looks a bit small to me still. I wish it were a few inches larger, but the bezel is perfectly sized so that my thumb can be solidly placed on the edges at all times without interfering with the touch screen area.

Another first thing to note is as soon as the device connects to the App Store up pops a request to install iBook. I think they’re really trying to push the book store influence on the device, and i went ahead and installed iBook since that was indeed a selling feature to me. As an added bonus classic books are available freely to add to the bookshelf. Win win.

The App Store itself is kind of a disappointment. It has a few bells and whistles like a little carousel of featured apps at the top of the screen, and then a section or two of the available apps below. I’ve not yet found a way to filter the list by free apps versus paid apps as I can with the iPod Touch. I really am on the cheap with the device and would prefer to only look at free items, but they really don’t seem to want you to do that. At least they don’t want you to do that at first glance. I admit i could be totally blind to any option staring me in the face, but I've not found it.

Now for the second selling feature. Netflix on the iPad. I was really excited about the thought of streaming videos on the handheld device. In reality the Netflix application really sucks. It’s functional, but just barely. The main screen really looks like a knock-off of the actual website. The functionality within just gets worse. Trying to page movies sometimes results in a gray floating ‘loading’ message in the middle of the screen forever. When viewing a TV show for example with multiple episodes once you hit the end of the episode it loads back to browsing the main category list, or at least that’s what it did for me. It was honestly so bad I opened the actual webpage in Safari and tried to use it there. That didn’t work out, but like i said the native app is at least somewhat functional. ABC does have a nice application. I don’t like any of the shows they have to offer. Come on Fox! I want to watch Fringe on the iPad already! Site note. I’ve heard AT&T is poo-pooing the use of the ABC app on the 3G network. Totally uber-fail on the second reason I wanted the 3G for.

The real winner in my book, totally unexpected I might add, was the eBay application. Very cool implementation of searching for products along with some daily deals displayed on the main page. AIM on the iPad was also incredibly neat, except for when people send you a link via IM, and you open it only to close out of AIM. That non-multitasking part is really rather annoying I admit.

All in all I think the iPad is pretty sweet. Worth the money? Eh, maybe. I will see how the 3G works out with the Google maps on trips, offering entertainment while fishing, and for checking comics and news at work. I have my home screen loaded with my favorite applications from GoDaddy, Facebook, eBay, and all the short-cuts to the comic websites from Penny Arcade to Ctrl-Alt-Del. The best part of web browsing is the flick to scroll interface. Absolutely love it. I love it on the iPod Touch, and I especially love the iPad’s larger viewable area. Nearly all the webpage's I frequent fit nicely into the screen size offered at a font size still readable.

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I’m not a huge fan of social networks partly because it seems most hardware vendors have switched from pushing performance to being mobile, and from being mobile to being socially connected. In that switch from performance to being socially connected most any hardware systems created today are always internet enabled with some sort of dashboard with instant Facebook/MySpace/Flickr/ or Twitter account hookup.

To even use these features a person has to constantly signup for an account, dump their personal information, manage yet another personal Id/password/profile, and then keep their profile up-to-date. There has been some progress made in terms of single account sign-in with OpenID, but there has been no progress in single profile management.

When developing applications it’s easy to create a PAD (Portal Application Description) for sharing product information from one author to many different consumers. It would be incredibly kick-ass to develop a SPD (social profile description) file that a person could create, and would allow social media sites to import/maintain the profiles on the social media sites using the user generated file. That gets into the whole how do you get the social media sites to open up to enable a consistent profile format across sites, who ultimately maintains these profiles, and about securing the contents of the profile file against duplication/impersonation.

Still I think it would be awesome, and it would spare me the trouble of having to log into these social sites to update my profile. Luckily my actual profile about who i am and what I do doesn’t change much. Still I would like to see social sites coming to me for updates instead of the other way around. Oh, maybe call it the OpenMe project or something of the like.

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I’m finally doing it. I’ve been dreaming of one day driving a motorcycle but have absolutely no idea how. What’s worse is I don’t know anyone with a motorcycle, and going to test-drive one is just out of the question. I have been drooling over a Honda Shadow VT750 for a while, but I need to know how to drive before I can decide on a make/model.

That is where the Great Oaks comes in. They have a motorcycle safety program offering basic rider courses. Just sign up, get a temporary motorcycle license, and they provide the rest. So come June 9th I’ll be spending three weekends cruising a parking lot no doubt.

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