Too much conspiracy theory, but there are some good messages too.
The story of corn and e.coli was that, "this may be happening, and if that is true, then this really bad thing is happening." A lot of the points were driven in this manner. And the fact that they added dramatic music and cinematographic lighting effects accentuate their points whenever they showed the evil meat processing plants left me wonder if there was another agenda for "Food, Inc." by its producers.
There is one story of a family where the dad spends more than a hundred dollars a day on medication (implying he got sick by eating unhealthy food for a long time), then says because of this, they can only feed their families through the dollar menu at Burger King. How about the miracle of technology and science that is able to keep this man alive and functioning? The alternative is that he is dead and the family is in a worse situation. Lots of people die due to bad genetics, and it has been this way since the dawn of man. The fact that he can take a pill, he should consider himself one of the lucky ones. Also, with bad decisions in life, like deciding to have more kids than you can provide for, he should consider it a blessing that he is able to feed his family of 5 through the dollar menu, rather than buy a head of lettuce for dinner.
There are some good tips at the end. Buy food locally at the farmers market. Buy things when they are in season. When you buy food from local markets, you support your local community. The food is cheap, and the food tastes amazing because fruits and vegetables are best when they are in season. This takes the need to add chemicals to colorize and to keep it fresh through the long communute from a country that you wouldn't ever consider traveling to.
If I were to add to the conspiracy theory, I do think there is something bizarre going on in the big American grocery chains. Let's take Ralphs for example. Do you ever remember being in the fruits and vegetables section at Ralphs? The raw fruits and vegetable prices are outrageous. Sometimes, I go there, and I want to buy an orange, and I find myself in a situation where I have to decide whether I want to pay $1.50 for an orange. Why of all places, should a single orange cost $1.50? You would expect that a big market can provide you good deals for fruits and vegetables? If you've been in the asian market, compare that to the atmosphere of an American market. The fruits and vegetable sections of the asian markets are bustling with people. The worst thing is, you pay $1.50 for that orange, and you realize that the orange has been stocked for its appearance, and long shelf-life. The last thing they care about is taste. So maybe there is some truth to the conspiracy here. The big markets would really prefer that you buy something from the regular isles, not their fruits and vetables. And they've calculated out that if you really want something from their fruits and vegetables section, they have that too. It's just not going to be cheap.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Navigon MobileNavigator 1.2 vs TomTom 1.0
I updated to Navigon's MobileNavigator from 1.1 to 1.2 and wow, what a huge improvement. It speaks the street names, doesn't seem to have a problem wanting to start navigation when it has already triangulated your position, in-app iPod controls, and night time color scheme.) My guess is they rushed to get their initial release out there because of TomTom, and they both (TomTom and Navigon) shot themselves in the foot. The new features on the Navigon app are solid, and it looks like they are serious in trying to improve this thing, unlike TomTom who hasn't released an update since 1.0.
Having used my Garmin Nuvi 360 to travel thousands of miles across the US, I have some strong opinions on what it's going to take me to not grab my *real* GPS when heading out the door for a long drive to a new destination. On my iPhone, I tried both Navigon 1.1 and TomTom 1.0 when they came out, and my reviews for both products would be "pathetic" for TomTom and "a good start" for the Navigon. Maybe the TomTom actually works for the iPhone 3GS, but for the iPhone 3G the TomTom app would just jump left and right all over the place while you were driving in a straight line. And it would jump across an entire street over or it would say you are in the ocean. I understand that its mostly due to cell phone triangulation, but its something that can be controlled with some code (it should know you can't be on the road for one second, then be 500 ft out in the ocean the next). I'm sure Navigon and I'm sure every other GPS app already does this unlike TomTom.
Trying to use an app like TomTom in front of people reminded me of nerds in high school who would try so hard to make a high-tech gadget do something simple (like bringing a keyboard for their Apple Newton (PDA), staring at that ridiculous small screen and trying to take notes. Then spending half the class trying to troubleshoot why the keyboard stopped working) when it was obvious it was more trouble than its worth. Everyone else in the class would screaming in their minds, "Just shut that thing off you idiot!!!"
I heard great things about TomTom devices, but the TomTom's iPhone app was so bad, I pretty much swore off the brand for good. Navigon on the other hand seems to be rapidly improving their app. I'm looking forward to future improvements. I think it may be good enough to let it start guiding me around when I'm out in the wild without my trusted Garmin Nuvi 360.
Having used my Garmin Nuvi 360 to travel thousands of miles across the US, I have some strong opinions on what it's going to take me to not grab my *real* GPS when heading out the door for a long drive to a new destination. On my iPhone, I tried both Navigon 1.1 and TomTom 1.0 when they came out, and my reviews for both products would be "pathetic" for TomTom and "a good start" for the Navigon. Maybe the TomTom actually works for the iPhone 3GS, but for the iPhone 3G the TomTom app would just jump left and right all over the place while you were driving in a straight line. And it would jump across an entire street over or it would say you are in the ocean. I understand that its mostly due to cell phone triangulation, but its something that can be controlled with some code (it should know you can't be on the road for one second, then be 500 ft out in the ocean the next). I'm sure Navigon and I'm sure every other GPS app already does this unlike TomTom.
Trying to use an app like TomTom in front of people reminded me of nerds in high school who would try so hard to make a high-tech gadget do something simple (like bringing a keyboard for their Apple Newton (PDA), staring at that ridiculous small screen and trying to take notes. Then spending half the class trying to troubleshoot why the keyboard stopped working) when it was obvious it was more trouble than its worth. Everyone else in the class would screaming in their minds, "Just shut that thing off you idiot!!!"
I heard great things about TomTom devices, but the TomTom's iPhone app was so bad, I pretty much swore off the brand for good. Navigon on the other hand seems to be rapidly improving their app. I'm looking forward to future improvements. I think it may be good enough to let it start guiding me around when I'm out in the wild without my trusted Garmin Nuvi 360.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
How to change your iPhone SSH password after you've lost the password
This guide is for people who have changed the default root password from alpine to something else. And unfortunately, have forgotten to write down the password and now they can't ssh anymore into the device.
I thought I would make this contribution to the web because all the past guides seem to refer to this app called iCommander, which doesn't seem to be available on iPhone firmware 3.0. So without further ado:
What you'll need it is a Windows machine. You will want to google an application called iPhoneBrowser. It lets you transfer files from your iphone without ssh through the USB cable. On a mac, maybe a similar application is available that is able to accomplish the same thing. You will need iTunes installed, or the iPhoneBrowser will not start correctly.
on iPhoneBrowser, connect your iPhone, go to /private/etc directory
download the file master.password to your desktop. Open this file with notepad. be careful not to touch anything in here that is not necessary.
You will find a string that looks similar to this:
root:/myoldpasswordhash:1:2::3:4:System Administrator:/var/root:/bin/sh
replace the line with
root:/smx7MYTQIi2M:0:0::0:0:System Administrator:/var/root:/bin/sh
Save the file, and overwrite it on your iPhone with iPhoneBrowser. Now you can ssh in your iphone again with the password of alpine, and the username of root.
One last tip, change your password again using a ssh client like putty.exe by logging in and running the passwd command. This time, write this new password down. :)
I thought I would make this contribution to the web because all the past guides seem to refer to this app called iCommander, which doesn't seem to be available on iPhone firmware 3.0. So without further ado:
What you'll need it is a Windows machine. You will want to google an application called iPhoneBrowser. It lets you transfer files from your iphone without ssh through the USB cable. On a mac, maybe a similar application is available that is able to accomplish the same thing. You will need iTunes installed, or the iPhoneBrowser will not start correctly.
on iPhoneBrowser, connect your iPhone, go to /private/etc directory
download the file master.password to your desktop. Open this file with notepad. be careful not to touch anything in here that is not necessary.
You will find a string that looks similar to this:
root:/myoldpasswordhash:1:2::3:4:System Administrator:/var/root:/bin/sh
replace the line with
root:/smx7MYTQIi2M:0:0::0:0:System Administrator:/var/root:/bin/sh
Save the file, and overwrite it on your iPhone with iPhoneBrowser. Now you can ssh in your iphone again with the password of alpine, and the username of root.
One last tip, change your password again using a ssh client like putty.exe by logging in and running the passwd command. This time, write this new password down. :)
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Street Figher IV (X360)
Stan managed to pick this game up for me for $20. What a bargain. If I had the patience, all games would cost $20. I'll have to fire it up once I'm back at home.
UFC Undisputed (X360)
I got this game early and managed to not suck online. I haven't touched it for a month though, and I'm sure I'm not as good.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Why you shouldn't trust IMDB.
Many many years ago I had a brilliant idea to start a company that would write fake reviews for IMDB. With maybe a handful of creative writers, you can definitely give the movie a boost by scoring it high, and also writing fake call-to-action ("go out and watch it now because you won't regret it and it made me feel this way") reviews.
Well, that's what IMDB has become today. A new movie comes out, its rated unusually high like 7.5 or 8.0, when it deserves a 5.5 or 6.0. These numbers, although may not seem that big of a deal but could mean tens of millions of dollars. IMDB has established itself for recommending movies, unfortunately you can't trust it. Look at the movie Public Enemies. It even was high in the imdb top 250 the first week. Now its out of there, with the rating of 7.8. But what is weird is that the forum, all there are is people complaining how bad the movie is. This movie is probably more likely a 5.8.
This is pretty sad.
Well, that's what IMDB has become today. A new movie comes out, its rated unusually high like 7.5 or 8.0, when it deserves a 5.5 or 6.0. These numbers, although may not seem that big of a deal but could mean tens of millions of dollars. IMDB has established itself for recommending movies, unfortunately you can't trust it. Look at the movie Public Enemies. It even was high in the imdb top 250 the first week. Now its out of there, with the rating of 7.8. But what is weird is that the forum, all there are is people complaining how bad the movie is. This movie is probably more likely a 5.8.
This is pretty sad.
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