Apple Q&A on Location Data

3. Why is my iPhone logging my location?
The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location

Dioxin causes insanity

Trevor Butterworth, writing in The Daily:

…but the scientific criticism of the EPA is not coming from billionaire energy moguls, it’s coming from one of the most august scientific institutions in America: the independent National Academy of Sciences. Even the EPA’s own Scientific Advisory Board thinks it’s left the orbit of reason.

We’ve known the EPA was “off its rocker” for decades, dating back at least to the proposed Superfund cleanup of Aspen, Colorado and the Smuggler Mountain mining site.

Pretty in Pink

Jessica Valenti writing in The Daily on the J.Crew uproar:

Suggesting that nail polish has anything to do with sexual preference or gender identity indicates a serious lack of knowledge about homosexuality, transgender issues or child development.

[…]

And no matter how these “experts” shroud their hate in rhetoric about concern for children, their true colors are showing. Unlike neon pink, it ain’t pretty.

Kevin Smith announces the SModcastle Lounge

Almost makes me wish I lived in L.A…

Kevin Smith, writing at his Silent Bob Speaks blog:

In May, SModcastle is closing.

However, also in May: SModcastle is re-opening at The Jon Lovitz Comedy Club at Universal CityWalk as SModcastle Lounge.

Taking over the entire top floor of The Lovitz, SModcastle Lounge will eventually serve as the home of SIR every morning. Until then, it’ll serve as the premium seating level for SMidnight @SModcastle Lounge: after-show podcast for both Jay & Silent Bob Get Old and Hollywood Babble-On. When you sit upstairs in the SModcastle Lounge, you’re watching Hollywood Babble-On or Jay & Silent Bob Get Old like everybody else; but when those shows are over, you are the show – as Ralph, Jay & I turn the microphones on YOU!

The lengthy blog posts also includes a history of the SModcastle…

Apple employees join ‘It Gets Better’ campaign

Apple employees join the It Gets Better campaign (link to YouTube).

Adobe employees too (link to YouTube).

State of the Franchise: Titans

NFL Total Access report on the state of the Titans (video, Flash required).

Recalling “Kaputnik” and the early days of the space race

Rose Lichter-Marck writing in The Daily:

On Dec. 6, 1957, Cape Canaveral was swarming with journalists. In the distance stood the 70-foot-tall Vanguard Test Vehicle 3, or TV-3, with its nib-like black nose. The cameras rolled as the countdown began. The slender rocket trembled against the blue sky as the boosters kicked in. Orange flames and gray smoke gathered at its base. It rose for two seconds — 4 feet off the ground — before white puffs emerged from its midsection, and the projectile appeared to retract back into itself. The fire billowed around the collapsing rocket as it fell away from the candy-striped support tower. Soon all was engulfed in flames, though somehow the spherical radio transmitter rolled out of the inferno undamaged.

Top Shot goes “reality”

I’m a big fan of the TV show Top Shot on the History Channel. My son and I watch every episode and we really enjoy the different challenges and weapons. But I must say that I don’t much care for the direction the show is taking.

The first season of Top Shot was predominantly about skill and performance; very competition-like. The second season has seen personality become a much more significant factor, culminating this week with Jamie and Jay (neither of whom turned in one of the worst two performances in the Individual Challenge) being sent to the Elimination Challenge.

Opinions vary, of course, but if I wanted to spend the little time I put aside for television watching a show about personality conflicts, I’d watch a soap opera or one of the ever increasing number of typical “Reality TV” shows*.

Unfortunately, Top Shot is becoming more “Reality TV”-like. In the first season, you routinely heard competitors making comments about how they wanted to compete against “the best”. This season, many of the remaining competitors have routinely made comments indicating that they’re more interested in simply competing against their friends. Perhaps a better show title for the second season would be “World’s Most Popular Marksman”.

yeah, in a minute…
* I don’t watch typical “Reality TV” shows because IMHO they usually have little to do with reality. I much prefer shows that have an actual basis in reality (e.g., Mythbusters) or where personalities remain a minimal or humorous aspect (e.g., Pawn Stars).

WordPress for iOS

I must say, the WordPress for iOS app has really matured since I last used it (it was called WordPress for iPhone back then…).

Here we go again…

Last year, after a number of years of faithful blogging at a site, the name of which now escapes me ;-), I decided to trash it all.  Why you ask?  Well, it’s very easy, when you have regular readers, to feel obligated to write something every day, and that has a tendency to make blogging feel a hell of a lot like a job–a job for which there is no pay and little thanks.  Add to that the fact that I only started blogging as a means of doing something that I enjoyed, and you get a big fat shit sandwich–so, right or wrong, that site is ‘gone with the wind’.

But, in the spirit of–aw hell, who am I kidding, I just wanted to start another blog; one that I could screw with when I felt like it with no obligation.  So, here we go…