Obscure Mania

This is such a cool android app. It shows all the apps I have installed on my G1 and will remain updated any time I install or uninstall anything else. You can share your apps with this cool widget in your blog or by URL http://www.appbrain.com/user/wayne318/apps-on-the-phone This can be either private or public. Too cool. H/T to TWIG (This Week in Google) Leolaporte’s list and Gina Trapani’s list. Now that android is growing, this is a great way to share cool apps among your android friends. Smarterware.org Names are mainly for my own personal notes since I can’t figure out how to search for people on App Brain yet. Link for my list.

I was going to twitter or facebook this, but it became too long. My wife wanted to go and it’s her birthday this weekend, so we went early on a workday for most. I could have gone or not even though I’m the same age as Michael and listened to all of his music growing up, I wasn’t emotionally attached to what became a spectacle.

The theater had about a dozen people in it, perfect timing for us. Hopefully the weekend will have more people, other wise it will be on DVD next month, but it really is worth going to see. Micheal Jackson was such a talent on stage and an incredibly talented creative genius, no matter what you thought of him.

That would have been the concert of the century and hard for anyone to beat. The footage is from the rehearsals, but the only thing missing was the audience. You see different costumes and sometimes everyone is in casual clothes, but the talent and the show is still definitely there.

Throughout the entire movie I was thinking about what a waste his death was. Wasn’t there anyone that could have said something? How about someone saying, “No more!”  How about, “Look what you’re doing to yourself?” How about just being there for him and not being the leech everyone around him seemed and still seems to be. Seeing Joe and the brothers on TV now makes me so angry I either have to throw something at the TV or change the channel. Talk about disgusting leeches, and now the brothers are going to go on tour? That’s got to be the sickest sort of profiteering there is. His entire family could have died and no one would have noticed and now they think people will pay attention to them now because Michael’s gone? Or even because they happened to be related to him? Absolutely sick.

Granted, an addict is going to do what they want and not always listen to those around him. From what I’ve heard, he shut out those that did try and help. The doctors he went to should have said no, but someone else would have said yes, so it might as well be them profiting.  What is it with doctors that can’t or won’t say no to celebrities. All of the doctors that wrote ‘scripts for Anna Nichol Smith knew they were doing something wrong as well.

Except for highlights you couldn’t escape from, I didn’t watch the funeral because I knew it was going to be such a freak show. It is incredibly sad that things had to end like they did. The man must have had some serious demons to deal with. Can you be that talented and not be seriously eccentric.

Back to the movie -They were filming rehearsals anyway at Michael’s request, probably for the DVD extra so a lot was available. All the great songs from Billie Jean, Beat It, Man in the Mirror, a few new ones and a stage production of Thriller. Incredible talent everywhere from the band and dancers to the man himself, it would have been a heck of a show. Great, great stuff.

This is the documentary about the “Atomic Age”. The beginnings of the Atomic bomb testing, deployment and how it changed the lifestyle of the country. It includes all of the newsreels and propaganda films of the era. My question after watching it was after dropping the two bombs on Japan, why was more testing needed? Purposely putting soldiers and civilians in harms way telling everyone there’s nothing to worry about.

Testing in the middle of the Pacific around the Bikini islands, the wind shifted unexpectedly and other inhabited islands were affected. Of course the Army sent a response crew to take care of the natives all the while explaining how there were only minor injuries while the film was showing sores and rashes but everyone is fine except for any future illnesses they might encounter and quote, “the 236 natives appear to be well and happy” as a medic is pulling hair out of a guys deformed head.  Nothing to worry about except in Japan where they threw out and brought fish back from market that had radiation, but I’m sure people were fine.

A military exercise outside Las Vegas that sent troops into an area just after the bomb blast to see how fast troops could get in and secure the area if they had to. Watch the military telling troops there was nothing to worry about and watching those troops running toward a mushroom cloud. What’s worse, who knows how many of those troops died years later from the fallout they received?

One odd thing (among many) was that there was an MP (Military Police) standing next to the interviewee while he was telling the reporter what he went through and showing his radiation detector and then the news report how the wind shifted and now Saint George was going to get some fallout, but there was nothing to worry about. The winds shifted again? Darn the weather.

Earlier a news conference reporting about the senseless execution of the Rosenbergs and how Ethel Rosenberg was still alive after her first electrocution and needed two more was really sad.

It’s edited showing newsreels and the propaganda films put out back then showing what we know now is the silliness of bomb shelters and radiation suits for kids, it also shows the ignorance of the government wanting to test something they knew nothing about on innocent soldiers and civilians and telling everyone there was nothing to worry about.

The cover of the Atomic Cafe listed on Amazon says it’s a comic horror film. Yeah, kind of. It’s comical in that we really lived like that and it’s a horror film from what the government was trying to convince us of. What was a little sickening was how the politicians and others said God was on our side including all of the pastors and reverends interviewed.

I had to watch this for the history class I’m taking and was going to leave the link but it’s behind a user id, so probably shouldn’t. It’s available at Amazon and probably most public libraries. I checked and it’s definitely in all of the Las Vegas libraries.

Update: Found on Youtube and Google Video -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOUtZOqgSG8
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1126269724766604475#

In one day I’ve been sent or have seen on blogs I read, two separate videos about privacy and Google. One multi-part video from Big Honkin and another video from the Onion. The first is from the comedy film makers Big Honkin about what if Google moved in as a roommate? In three parts. The other is a “news” (satire) report from the Onion about what happens to the people that want to Opt-Out of Google.

These are funny, but as with all satire, there’s a little bit of truth. I use Gmail, Gcalendar, Gvoice, Gdocs, Goog411, there’s more but decided this list was long enough and now the Gphone. Of course all of my websites are in Google. Hopefully Google won’t turn out to be too evil and if they are I’m old enough I won’t have to put up with it for too long.

The information is out there already, it’s only a matter of who sees it and what they do with it. If it’s only a matter of selling you crap, that’s fine and no one really cares. But when it comes to health information and employers using information they find out on the web as a reason to not hire you whether it’s true or not, that’s when things become a problem and things like that are happening now, more and more.

You want to make sure the information about you that is online is factual and someone looking for you knows it’s you or not. If you have an uncommon name, it’s not that difficult to control. If you’re John Smith, you have to be unique in some other way. John Smith the Jazz Musician or John Smith the Plumber where someone looking for a musician name John Smith will be able to find you. You want your site to be found for friends, family, job contacts and other networking, but you still need to control your privacy like your address and phone number. It’s tough to control because everyone wants to know everything.

The Big Honkin Three Parts What if Google was Your Roommate.
Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Here’s the report from the Onion:

I finished watching the Ken Burns The Civil War and it’s incredible the numbers of men that were lost in various battles. What’s even more incredible is the number of Generals that were absolutely worthless. When the Civil War started, if you had any kind of education or some sort of politician, you were made an officer, sometimes even a general. Several grads from West Point were on both sides, but more were needed.

It’s truly amazing some of the ineptitude and bungling of generals on both sides. One stupid mistake by some idiot in charge could cost thousands of lives. After the surrender at Appomattox the northern troops shared their rations with the Southerners, in a sign of what should have been a great healing of the country.

Almost every General in the Civil war seems to have a Fort or something named after them. All of the battles and the National Cemeteries are still reminders of the events that shaped this country.

Over 3 million served, 620,000 died, 1 million injured, that sounds like reparations paid in blood of the Americans that fought and died in what may not have started out to be a war officialy about slavery, but everyone knew it was.

I’ve been working on the OpenX tutorials and since I don’t want to host the video on my own website to save the space and the bandwidth, I’ve been trying to find a service like YouTube. The problem with YouTube is they only allow 10 minute videos. You used to be able to pay extra to upload longer videos but not anymore.

Revver

I decided on Revver for a few reasons, no time limit, it’s free, but they stick ads in the videos. YouTube puts ads in their videos also. But it takes forever for them to approve your video because they have an actual person look at every single video. It’s been over 24 hours and I’m still waiting for the videos to be approved.

Vimeo

I found Vimeo recently. It’s free unless you want to do a lot of HD and upload more than 500 mb a week. I tried to upload the exact same video I uploaded to Revver, but it didn’t take. I then followed their instructions on the video settings and the file went from 23 mb to 144 mb, weird. There are no ads and they approve videos a lot faster, either I don’t understand their settings or they want large files. It may be better quality, but we’ll see if there’s much of a difference after Revver approves the same video.

Plus Vimeo is setup a lot like Flickr in that they have groups, you can add your videos to channels and albums. I kind of like the player that’s on Revver a little more. Plus Revver has more options for the embedded player.

Here’s the way to hack a lost pin: Most people are going to use their home or work as their “secret place”. When you steal it, make sure it’s at their home or work, then turn it on so you can change the pin. For everyone else, use something besides your home and work as your secret place.

Did you forget the pin you put into your GPS unit? Did you also forget the secret place you installed in case you lose your pin? Yeah, right, of course you did. If you really did, you’re pretty much out of luck. Unless you actually call the manufacturer and send it back there is no way to hack a lost pin for any GPS units.

GPS units are the hottest thing stolen from cars right now and there’s no sign of slowing down. Even if you have a GPS unit you have to input a pin when you turn the unit on, thieves can’t tell if your unit is locked or not. Then it’s gone. It’s worthless to the thief, but it’s still gone.

What can you do so your GPS unit doesn’t become a fancy paperweight on a thief’s desk? (Do thieves have desks?)

Take it with you. Even if you take it out of the bracket that’s still on the window, you don’t think some idiot thief isn’t going to think to look in your glove box or under your seat?

Register the unit when you buy it with the manufacturer. Most have a website to make registration fast and painless. At least you can report it to the manufacturer in case the thief tries to send it back to have the pin reset.

If you insist on leaving it in the car, at least take the bracket down and CLEAN THE WINDSHIELD. If you don’t, you might as well leave everything in plain sight.

Garmin 770

Dilbert is the only comic I read on a regular basis. I usually get flashbacks from my time in the corporate world, but there is more to the strip than just office humor.

It always amazes me how really smart people can be so stupid. I’m not really that smart so it never surprises me when I do something stupid, I expect it.

Maybe it wasn’t really stupidity, it was more like gambling on a game of Old Maid. The last one holding the bad card loses. Except the joke was on us.

This is great for people that are sitting around with plenty of time on their hands and love to read. Go to Go Read Green and sign up for a free online magazine subscription from a list of 16 mainstream publications. You need a different email for each subscription, but how hard is that? You can download the magazine to take with you or browse online.

The magazine reader is from zinio.com and is an exact replica of the magazine. Waiting time for the magazine to load depends on your connection, but it’s not bad. There’s a zoom option to zoom in on the semi-tough to read print unless you zoom in on it. Zinio has just about every magazine in print you can get a regular online subscription.

The free subscription may be a limited time offer and I don’t know how much other stuff will get sent to your email, but depending on the magazine a real online subscription could cost up to $20 or $30 bucks.

Some of the magazines on the free trial include Men’s Journal, PC Magazine which will no longer be in print, Popular Science, US News and World Reports and several others.

Link: Go Read Green

All the election and economy news got you down? Have you turned off all the news channels or ripped out your satellite dish, but you still want news?

How about pirates, Iran and Moussad spy stuff for a change of pace?

One of the podcasts I download on a regular basis is a talk show from KFI in Los Angeles. Bryan Suits is an Iraq War Veteran. He has a regular talkshow during the week, but on Sundays he goes into his “dark secret place” and talks about the war, foreign policy, the war on terror and the military, plus a lot of what the headlines aren’t saying.  He has not only been in Iraq, but the first Gulf War and Bosnia as an NCO in the Army National Guard and later commissioned before going to Iraq. He jokes a little about a head wound he got in Iraq, so he might be home on disability.

Here’s the show from two Sundays ago about the Somali pirate situation that’s going on. Plus, what’s going on in Israel and a little history of what the Moussed has done. The Chinese are in the Sudan getting their oil and we’re trying to make the Sudan a safe place. If the Chinese lose people in the Sudan, they just send more and we’re always portrayed as the evil ones?

Go to the KFIAm640 download section and look under Sunday for Bryan Suits, get the feed or search in iTunes for KFI. Previous shows are worth the download. It’s a two hour radio show, which translates to about an hour with all the commercials and news breaks taken out. In iTunes or the RSS feed you have to subscribe to all the Sunday shows, but you can just download this one. Since you’re downloading and have the Sunday lineup in front of you, check out the Jesus Christ show for something really different.

Also see the The Dark Secret Place Fan Site
[audio:Suits100508.mp3]