Category Archives: Stupidity

Things I hate about the Android experience

In short, Android and Google have major issues with:
1) Backups. They suck and I do not trust my data with Android or Google’s backup systems. I write backup software for a living and know it’s a hard problem but Android’s backup system makes it sound like it backs up everything which is blatantly false.
2) Duplicate files. Both photos and music have tons of duplicating issues making usage a pain.
3) App permissions. On install you’re shown what the app wants and once you agree, the app has 24/7 access to all these.

Details:
* I had to wipe my phone earlier this year. I made sure to set my phone to backup all apps and their data which informed me that it would save ALL settings and auto-restore them on reset. After wiping I discovered that I had lost most of my app data. Apparently this feature is opt-in for developers so most apps will NOT be backed up. I lost tons of data on my apps. I also had to set everything back up on the phone manually after restore.

* I have had my phone set to sync all of my photos to Google since I got it. A few days ago I discovered that since Google separated their photos out of Google+, my phone was no longer backing up photos. I was shocked that Google would stop backing up my photos and not even inform me that I needed to take action to get them backing up again. My photo backups has stopped several months ago. I had to download the new “Google Photos” app since my phone’s built-in photo backup feature no longer functioned. I thought this has solved the problem but…

* I now have duplicates of every photo on my device. When I look in the Photos app I now see a copy of my local photo stored on my SD card as well as the photo backed up to Google Photos. Scrolling through my photos I’m now stuck with two copies of everything and I cannot find a way to fix this.

* Using the official “Google Play Music Manager” app on OS X to keep my iTunes music synced into Google Play Music has resulted in dozens of song duplicates in all my playlists on my phone. I have cleaned these duplicates out once but now I have even more duplicates. This makes playlists useless.

* The permission system on Android is awful. Apps demand all their permissions upfront and once you grant them they have them for the time they are installed. On ios you are prompted before a lot of usage unless you grant permanent access. The permission system on Android is also not very granular so even the simplest apps are requesting wide-open access to the entire phone just to do so simple things. This is a security disaster. I know Google is working on solving this but it should have been solved long ago.

There have been many more hiccups along the way but these are some of the big ones.

George Carlin – Who Really Controls America

TRANSCRIPT:

There’s a reason that education sucks, and it’s the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it. Be happy with what you’ve got. Because the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now, the big, wealthy, business interests that control all things and make the big decisions.

Forget the politicians, they’re irrelevant.

Politicians are put there to give you that idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations, and they’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State Houses, and the City Halls. They’ve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear.

They’ve got you by the balls.

They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want—they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interest. You know something, they don’t want people that are smart enough to sit around their kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.

They don’t want that, you know what they want?

They want obedient workers, obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.

And now they’re coming for your social security money.

They want your fucking retirement money; they want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later because they own this fucking place. It’s a big club and you ain’t in it! You and I are not in the Big Club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you in the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to believe, what to think and what to buy.

The table is tilted folks, the game is rigged.

Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. Good honest hard working people, white collar, blue collar, it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard working people continue, these are people of modest means, continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about them. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about…give a fuck about you! They don’t care about you at all, at all, at all.

And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.

That’s what the owners count on, the fact that Americans are and will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white, and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday. Because the owners of this country know the truth, it’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.

There’s no such thing as safe driving. Abstinence only!

A friend of mine posted this on their Facebook. Very nice.

“The number one killer of young Americans is the automobile. However, the Secular Humanists dominating our schools refuse to acknowledge that the only safe driving is abstinence from driving. Instead, they advocate courses in “Driver Education,” in which teenagers are taught “Safe Driving,” and no attention is given to traditional values. They are even taught the use of “Seat Belts” (and some classes even give explicit demonstrations of the proper method of applying these belts!) with, at best, a passing mention that the protection provided by these belts is only partial. Clearly, this sends a mixed message to our young people: it appears to condone driving, and the more inquisitive will surely feel encouraged to experiment with driving.” [Original Source]

Pastor goes on defense over supposed anti-republican Facebook status

I have been shocked by the beliefs and ignorance of church leaders many times (though no longer surprised) throughout the years.  Organized religion seems to be a breeding ground of fear, hate, and ignorance; though one may argue that these are willful attributes and they are only hiding their beliefs behind their religion for use as justification.  It’s certain that not everyone involved in the church are like this, but unfortunately a great number are.  This is why so much of the rest of the world is so shocked by many of the beliefs held by many in our country.  Much of it just doesn’t make logical sense.  It’s like much of the country is now propelled and driven by emotion and ignorance rather than logic and sound thinking and the church is part of the driving force behind this.

About a year ago I ‘friended’ the youth group leader on Facebook from the church I went to several years ago.  Today I posted the following to Twitter which was mirrored to my Facebook status.

In case you haven’t read about the RNC 2004 mass arrests of peaceful protesters (not an isolated incident)… http://www.2600.com/rnc2004/

The youth group leader, which I later learned is now the pastor of the church, made this reply:

And it’s obtuse willfully ignorant posts like this one that has helped me make the decision to remove you from my friend list. You just keep on acting like republicans have a monopoly on questionable behavior. What about the Black Panthers “patroling the polls” in 2008? How about the ACORN wingnuts and their general lack of regard for the law? … See MoreMaybe you should look into the kkk’s roots in the democratic party and their stated goal to appose the encroachment of blacks Jews Catholics the GOP and other such “undesirables.” To act like either party is innocent of injustices is willfully ignorant. Goodbye and enjoy your trip through the arrogance of youth.