Aaron Adams’s Lame-ass Blog

I was surprised to read this article at AppleInsider stating that Apple is dismantling their forum staff. Not that the discussion areas are going away, mind you, but that the people who Apple counts on to moderate the boards are being relieved of their duty.

The reasoning behind the change is that the Apple discussion boards are increasingly becoming a place for “everything from rudeness to instructions on pirating music and software.” I have to admit, I’ve seen some posts on the discussion boards that made me grind my teeth because of their inappropriateness, hostile attitude, or flat-out stupidity.

Welcome to the INTARWEB1!!!.

Frankly, I haven’t seen a discussion board that hasn’t eventually degenerated into an immature shouting match between blowhard factions. Hiding behind the anonymity of a computer screen seems to give a significant number of people the lack of judgement and the false sense of bravado required to turn something that has enormous potential as a helpful tool into a breeding ground for idiocy. Obviously, Apple’s discussion boards are no exception.

But I’m not condemning the discussion boards. Frankly, if you can sort the signal from the noise, they’re very helpful. In fact, when I encounter a problem, the discussion area is the first place I go because it’s almost certain that someone has dealt with the issue before me, and I’m not one to reinvent the wheel.

If troubleshooting is my primary use for the discussion forums, why not just use the Apple knowledge base instead? Because it blows, that’s why. I expect, for instance, to be able to enter specific error messages into the search field and get an explanation from the knowledge base, and that almost never happens. Although there is no indication that the discussion area is going away, I would hate to see that happen because the knowledge base is utterly incapable of picking up what would be lost in the discussion areas’ absence. As a repository for user-shared knowledge, the discussion area is invaluable and needs to stay around. If Apple decides that it needs to be more tightly controlled or more aggressively managed, all the better. I prefer signal over noise, and if Apple’s intent is to improve the signal, count me in.

According to this article in the Dayton Daily News (registration required)…

An 84-year-old man was sentenced to seven years in prison Friday for shooting a neighbor in a dispute over the construction of a garage.
…
Hashman testified during his trial that he shot Oskins because he feared his neighbor would grind his feet off with the snow blower.

So where is police Sgt. Dumbass, from a couple of posts ago, to say “It sounds like it’s just a simple mistake by an elderly man,” and that he “seriously doubts” charges will be filed? I mean, the old guy is either mentally disturbed or thought he was in danger. In either case, it turns out he was wrong about the snow blower, and hence, shooting the other guy. Oops! He should be cut some slack, right?

There’s no mention in the article of whether either man owns or uses a cell phone, or if a cell phone was somehow involved in the shooting, or the tension leading up to it.

And now it’s time for my two cents about the new wireless Mighty Mouse I received yesterday.

It’s a mouse. I move it, and the little arrow on the screen moves in a synchronized fashion. I don’t notice that the new laser tracking mechanism is any more accurate than the optical mechanism in my other Apple wireless mouse, which I never thought was inaccurate to begin with. I’ve had to consciously force myself to start using the scroll ball and the right-click. That’ll take me some time to get used to, and I never thought the absence of those two things was a big deal. The scrolling works, um, fine, but I don’t think repetitively moving my finger over the scroll ball is better than clicking-and-dragging the scroll bar in the window.

I like being able to push in the scroll ball to bring up my dashboard. That’s a handy feature I’ve already gotten used to. As for the side buttons, I have those assigned to Expose, all windows, and I find the buttons hard to push. It takes a good squeeze to activate them. Then again, I don’t know that I’d want them to be too sensitive because every time I grabbed the mouse they’d activate, and that would be annoying.

The wireless Mighty Mouse looks and feels a bit cheaper than the regular Apple wireless mouse, in my opinion. It doesn’t have the same kind of clear coat finish, and the plastic seems like it’s thinner or something. I liked the gray Apple logo underneath the clear coat as opposed to the indented one stamped in the Mighty Mouse, but that’s just personal preference.

The Mighty Mouse is definitely lighter than the other mouse, but I never considered the other mouse too heavy to begin with. And as for one battery operation, I’m not sure what rational person would exclude a mouse from their on-the-go set-up because of the weight of a single AA battery, although I know those people exist.

Overall, I’m happy with it. I was happy with the regular Apple wireless mouse too.

From this article at CNN:

EL MONTE, California (AP) — An 85-year-old man who drove a car onto a patio at a Starbucks coffee shop and injured 10 people, two of them critically, isn’t likely to face charges, police said Saturday.

“It sounds like it’s just a simple mistake by an elderly man,” said police Sgt. Richard Williams, adding he “seriously doubts” charges will be filed.

Awww, the poor elderly man… It was just a simple mistake that injured 10 people, and probably could have killed some of them had it been worse. No reason to file charges just because someone who obviously shouldn’t be in control of thousands of pounds of high-speed metal endangered the lives of 10 people. Give him a grande soy milk whipped cappuccino triple-shot latte and an overpriced cookie (at Starbucks’ expense) and send him home.

What if this had been a 40 year-old man with a cell phone in his hand? Or a teenager with a cell phone? What if the old man was yakking it up with his respirator-bound friends at Shady Acres on a cell phone when he plowed into 10 people? Police Sgt. Dumbass would be on the phone to Sing Sing immediately, telling them to get the electric chair warmed up.

I don’t understand why some kinds of dangerous drivers are given a free pass, and other kinds have activist groups and governments of all levels bearing down on them. Injuring (or killing) 10 people because of negligent inability to control a vehicle should result in the same consequences for everyone, whatever their age, whatever hardware is in their hand. The idea that cell phones pose a special, singular threat to the driving public is absurd, and I prefer that absurdity die a painful death before it becomes yet another nanny state law enacted at the behest of do-gooders who think they know what’s best for everyone and charge government with the responsibility of protecting us from ourselves and others, instead of letting responsible adults live their lives.

Remember the two jerk brothers from a couple of years ago who made a big deal about lithium-ion batteries in iPods behaving normally, and causing no end of pre-purchase angst for some potential iPod buyers to this very day?

According to this article (video), they were on a morning show in New York yesterday where they staged a fake accident with an electric grinder while demonstrating how to steal a bike. Amazing.

These guys are just jerks out to get a reaction from people and attention for themselves. Mission accomplished. Twice.