14 January, 2010 How to fix the HTC Dream, AKA Android G1 phone
This is a nice little phone but it is seriously underpowered. Little space to install apps, little RAM, slow CPU... waiting a minute and a half to load your contacts might bring back a teary-eyed nostalgia for 9600 baud dialup but it sucks on a phone. So, here's how you fix it.

1. Root the damn thing.
2. Install a decent ROM, we suggest CyanogenMod.
3. Get yourself a Class 6 SDHC card and make three partitions: the first and largest, VFAT; the second, ext3 or ext4, and a swap partition. This will allow you to install apps on the SDHC, instead of the internal phone storage. It's essential; Cyanogen takes care of it automagically if your sdX2 is some sort of ext[2-4] partition.
4. Get yourself a decent task manager; I like ES Task Manager.
5. Grab the 10 Megs of Video RAM, because only a loser plays 3D games on their phone. It's dead simple.

23 October, 2009 Smashie-Smashie!
And now, a po-em.

Remember, remember
the 9th of October,
telescopes, reason and plot
I can think of no treason
more 'fitting the season
than smashing that bright lunar dot!

14 September, 2009 Sheer lunacy!
Don't forget folks, on 9 October LCROSS impacts the moon at Cabeus A, a nice dark crater in the southern polar region. Cabeus was named after a Jesuit philosopher opposed to the crackpot theories of some guy named Galileo. Personally, I'm thrilled to be blowing up his crater.

04 August, 2009 WHAT HAS BEEN SEEN ... CANNOT BE UNSEEN
Thank the gods July is over with. Returning to pressing matters, a party of beach-goers in Tiburon, CA apparently had a disagreement over who in the family was more pleasant. Officers from Tiburon PD responded to the scene and offered emotional support and counselling to all involved.

I'm not making this up. These people are real. Thanks to Lizajane for the pointer.

31 July, 2009 Societas Maleficarum offline.
Yes, SocMal is offline for the moment. Upstream is working on fixing the problem but until then, yes we know, and yes your mail is being queued. As soon as service is restored we'll send out an announcement.

Update: Service has been restored.

15 July, 2009 RKBA OK! Sort of.
Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law the Restaurant Carry bill, the Parking Lot storage bill, the defensive display bill, and the NRA-trained instructors bill. These go into effect 30 September. We like Restaurant Carry (SB 1113) but don't think it goes far enough (it only applies to CCW holders). Still, it's a start.

Before you all run out to vote for her though, she also signed the stupid Abortion Counseling bill into law, which requires physicians to mouth certain platitudes to women seeking abortions, and mandates a 24-hour waiting period. *sigh* To hell with both parties.

More in the archives

Getting those annoying phone calls purporting to warn you that your automobile warranty coverage is about to expire? How about sales calls to your cellular phone? Your pals and mine in the FCC have a handy little form you can use to file a complaint. It doesn't take long and it does seem to work.

Speaking of health care....
I'd just like to point this out, to our friends and enemies on both sides of the health care debate: government-run health care will, by necessity, be run by the Government. Yes. So too is the Post Office, and I don't think enough people remember this. So, I'm going to tell you a story.

I just got back from my local branch of the United States Post Office, where I tried to mail a letter. The time was 12:06. To my surprise, I was barred from entry. The reason for this was, you might have guessed, that the Post Office closes at noon on Saturday.

In what reasonable world does the Post Office close at noon? But I digress; it closes at noon because it closes at noon.

Now, there were probably about 15 to 20 people standing in line inside, and what looked like a family of 4 or 5 children, all cavorting about and having the time of their lives. They were still being served, but because I was 6 minutes late there was "nothing [they] can do" for me.

This, like arbitrary closing times despite the four other people behind me trying to get in is typical of government thinking. Had I been at Mailboxes Etc., I probably would have been let in. Since it was a State-run operation however, the letter of the law states that my simple 50-cent transaction must occur before noon on Saturday--not 12:01, 12:02, or 12:06. I am an aberration if my needs don't match the services available. Truly, this is the kind of thinking we want in our hospitals.

What's going to happen to people when the Government runs our health care? Now, I'm really not that put out over having to mail my letter on Monday morning, and the guy who turned me away was rather polite about it all. That's not the point. What I worry about is things getting worse because the State's getting involved.

There will inevitably be many claims against our new insurance overlords. Who arbitrates these claims against the State? Yep. The State. How do you unionize against the State? Sure, you can fire the bastards but that still leaves us (not them) with the problem.

It'll happen whether we want it or not. We await silent Tristero's Empire.

"Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy."

F. Scott Fitzgerald

VioPac's Book of the Month Club,
where we club you until you read it

- * December * -

A narrative of some of the adventures, dangers, and sufferings of a Revolutionary soldier (also published under the stupid title Private Yankee Doodle) is a witty and important memoir written by a private serving in the Continental Army in the American Revolution. You'll read it because the preening and fickle trollop he fought to defend against foreign and domestic tyranny still lives today, as ungrateful and narcissistic as ever.

- * November * -

Dashiell Hammett wrote with a sparse and direct prose that conveyed only the bare facts, with little ornamentation; and yet his writing contained a wealth of depth and character insight that makes him a joy to read. He will tell you what a character says, and does--but never what he or she thinks or feels. This month's directive from VioPac's Ministry of Voluntary Self-Enlightenment is Hammett's The Glass Key. Read it or we'll pummel you.

The VioPac Profit Pyramid details our aggressive funding acquisition architecture, implementing cutting-edge Spectre of Communism^TM, technology to absorb profit directly from USofA, Inc. (d.b.a. The Taxpayers^TM) and, coupled with dynamic synergies with VioPac ZOG and NWO IRL 3.0 properties, seamlessly inject it directly into VioPac coffers.