The Adventures of ChipheadMike

Wonder how much information you really put out there through Facebook?

youropenbook.org

This information can be had by anyone who can build an application using the Facebook API.

This story comes from Reuters.

A woman who worked at a super market in Germany took bread home that was supposed to be discarded. Is she guilty of a crime?

The 44-year-old cashier had been asked to dispose of the bread in a bio-waste container in March this year, but it was later found in her bag when she was searched by supermarket security personnel on leaving work later that day.

The woman, who was not named, argued that she had intended to put the bread in the bio-waste container, but her employer believed she meant to take it home and eat it.

The Leipzig labor court ruled on Monday that even if the employee did intend to eat the bread, it did not constitute grounds for dismissal, especially given her 27-year employment record with the company and the fact that the bread no longer had any monetary worth for the employer.

The answer is yes. She is guilty of a crime. She took something that did not belong to her. Whether or not it is worth $0.00 or $2,000.00 the fact remains that the property did not belong to her and she took it.

The law really is or rather, should be that simple.

Stealing is a very simple concept. I own a CD. I bought it at Wal-Mart. I have a receipt for it and the CD clearly belongs to me. You come along and take it from me. That is stealing. You don’t own it. It didn’t belong to you.

The bread was the sole property of her employer and she willfully took it.

For reasons unknown to me, German courts seem to think that they can just add a condition to the definition of theft. Well, it wasn’t really very expensive so it’s ok if the woman took it.

And that my friends, is why the world is going to hell in a hand basket.

My “talking point” of the day. Why the conservatives do so poorly in new media compared to the left?

Conservatives have to name everything “Right.”

On the left…

They know how to name things.

Huffington Post. Daily Koz. Etc. Can you tell what their politics are by the name? No. Not everyone may be as net savvy as you are.

At this point in time, it’s actually annoying to see “liberal” or “conservative” in a name.

If your podcast, website, or conference didn’t have the word “right” in it, you may have actually tricked someone from the opposite side into discovering it and taking part instead of seeing the word “right” and running the other way.

Statistically speaking; leaving your politics out of your name is one of the easiest ways of attracting a new following.

Just sayin.

Let me get this straight.

We have managed to run up a massive deficit because of our inability to manage the tax money we get at the federal level. We spend way more money than we take in.

In any other small business model (or corporation for that matter) this formula wouldn’t work. This formula also doesn’t work for your average family budget either. You simply can not sustain an existence based on spending more money than you actually have.

We’ve held a federal level deficit for many many years.

Spending other people’s money is just too damn appealing I suppose because logic and common sense dictate that this behavior be corrected in order to allow growth and stability.

The “transition” tax is supposed to help combat the rapidly growing deficit but I’m afraid it’s akin to trying to fix a stab wound by making more stab wounds.

As I’ve said on Twitter and Facebook, what planet am I on?

Really.

*** iPhone 4 ***

Why does the new iPhone have various reception issues regarding the cellular antenna?

You can thank the Federal Government for meddling in business along with design and development once again.

via MacWorld…

First, iPhone 4, like almost every other modern cell phone, puts the cellular antennas at the bottom, where they are most likely to be covered by your hand. The reason is that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has strict limits on the amount of energy that can be absorbed by the human body from a handheld device, Webb says in his first post last week. The energy limit is called the Specific Absorption Rate or SAR. So the phone designers move the antennas as far away from the head as possible—to the bottom of the phone.

Because of this SAR restriction that seems to be an entirely arbitrary number (let’s face it, the numbers will change tomorrow) the designers of the iPhone 4 as well as others are faced with serious fundamental functionality issues when it comes to cell phones in general.

Engineering will come up with a solution. I’m sure of that.

From a “stay the hell out of my life” position with respect to the FCC driving design of a cell phone, I think this is a great example of government over reaching into our lives.

Of course, there will be those few who argue about the safety concerns involving having a cell phone too close to your head and possibly (never proven) causing cancer but the real question becomes “do you want the government to make those decisions for you?”

If a cell phone is proven to cause cancer, I’m pretty sure people will stop using them.

*** The Rant (in no particular order) ***

Neither any individual nor the government (body politic) as a whole is smart enough to tell me how to live my life. In fact, quite the opposite is true. This generation of politicians is so corrupt that the fact that they can no longer read (e.g. the constitution) pales in comparison.

If true representative government worked as it should in a Republic such as ours, this post would be entirely unnecessary.

Unfortunately, most of the people of this great land who elected a socialist as President and now feel the pains of buyers remorse can rejoice in the fact that despite all of the technology and the internet and all of our advances they remain the “diet Pepsi” of American society since our inception. Perhaps, the stupidest generation of adults the world has ever produced. Just one calorie, hardly even capable of turning on the television without the remote control. I have watched my daughter spend over 15 minutes searching for a remote instead of just going over to the television and using the “ON” switch. I rest my case.

We need laws to spell out the painfully obvious and at the moment this started to happen the forefathers collectively turned in their graves yet again.

I believe that America is the greatest country on the face of the Earth even in it’s presently unrecognizable form.

Will we ever make the necessary changes to fix our broken society? We have become too fat and too lazy so probably not.

If you really like air conditioning instead of letting your body naturally control your weight than you may actually live longer if the fact that you are living like a piece of steak in the refrigerator doesn’t bother you.

I can hear it now, “I’m a political blogger and I’m making a difference.” Actually, no you are not. At the very best, you are preaching to the folks who believe exactly as you do. At worst, you are getting web traffic because you wrote a post that contained either the words “boob” or “nude” in it. Preaching to the same side doesn’t advance anything. The real mission is conversation, discussion, and eventually conversion to your side and way of thinking.

I posted a quote from Bill Clinton a few weeks ago…

The problem with ideology is, if you’ve got an ideology you’ve already got your mind made up. You know all the answers and that makes evidence irrelevant and arguments a waste of time.

The bloggers that make a real effort to reach across the political divides and engage their counterparts are the real winners of political blogging.

If you are conservative and consider Fox News to be conservative and you watch Fox News all day, how could your opinion be considered in any way a fair one. The same applies to those who watch CNN all day long as well. I have a friend who watches CNN all day long and the funny thing is…if I want his opinion on any given political issue all I have to do is turn on CNN. It’s as predicable as my 10:00 alarm clock.

Ok, I’ve done enough ranting this morning.

This stuff pisses me off.

Just in case you think all of your main stream news is biased, here comes an article found on Slashdot. This could be a fault in the way the article is written but on the surface your common sense filter should go off.

Here is what you read when you are on the site…

“We know that the iPad is selling like hotcakes, but how satisfied are the people who buy it? Over at Technologizer, we conducted a survey of 6,000 iPad early adopters. There are a few places where they were critical — the majority, for instance, aren’t happy with Apple’s App Store approval process. Overall, however, they’re overwhelmingly upbeat.”

Now, the first red light to go off would be the one that says “Why would an iPad user give a rat’s ass about the iTunes Store Application Approval Process?”

(picture source: PC World)

The quick answer. They wouldn’t. The person buying an iPad is buying to use it. If they want an application, they simply go to iTunes and pick what they want and buy it. At present, Apple does NOT have a section in the iTunes store devoted to applications that they may be sitting on waiting to release or deny at some future date.

In order for the consumer to “care” about the approval process they would have to know something about it and why would they? How would they know who is developing what and in addition, what problems they may be having getting their product up on the iTunes store? “EA is coming out with this really cool game but Apple is holding up releasing it. I really don’t like the application approval process.” So, a majority of those random folks you surveyed sounded something like that?

I submit that they wouldn’t.

A majority of a survey of 6,000 users would not turn up such findings unless those 6,000 were strictly developers. Without taking a survey, I can tell you that my daughter doesn’t like the fact that it doesn’t have a USB port.

Me: So, Jennifer what don’t you like about the iPad.
Jennifer: I wish it had a USB port.
Me: So, what do you think about the application approval process?
Jennifer: Huh? Is that an app? How much is that?
Me: Nevermind.