General Updates – Page 21 – Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

Bizarre Keywords That People Search For That Lead Them To My Blog

September 13, 2010September 4, 2021 Bradley Farless1 Comment

I was looking through my Google Analytics page at the keywords section and I started noticing some really weird, bizarre, and just downright foul stuff. It’s crazy what people search for. Anyhow, I figured I’d share it. Some of it is worth a good laugh. Some of it will make you say “WTF!”. Either way, it’s bound to be entertaining. Also, most of this is NSFW.

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boys in underwear / boys underwear

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men strual machine japan / menstrual japanese movies

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nude child / nude in airport

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I suppose the lesson to be had from this is that porn drives the Internet more than anything else. Thankfully, most of the keywords people are hitting my blog from are much more productive and on topic than these.

Also, to all you sick bastards out there looking for naked children… you won’t find that here.

Hello Kitty Doc Martens

August 17, 2010September 4, 2021 Bradley Farless2 Comments

Dr. Marten and Sanrio are about to celebrate their 50th anniversaries and to celebrate they’ve decided to collaborate on five limited edition sets of Hello Kitty footwear.

““Both SANRIO and Dr. Martens have made a global impact on fashion and culture for 50 years,” said Janet Hsu, President of SANRIO, Inc. “The timing of our collaboration couldn’t come at a more perfect time as we celebrate our anniversaries with a special, limited edition collection for our core fans. Taking inspiration from our iconic characters and blending signature elements of Dr. Martens, this collection is sure to be an instant, must-have item for collectors around the world.””

I have a set of Dr. Martens sitting on my shoe rack right now, but I think I’ll pass on these. Maybe my wife might like a pair though? I’ll have to ask!

If you’re a Hello Kitty collector, a shoe collector, or you just think these kick ass, you can place pre-orders on their site. Shipping starts on September 1st.

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 in Real Life

July 8, 2010September 4, 2021 Bradley Farless12 Comments

Photo © Catherine Jamieson

I don’t know how many of you have read this book, but it was required reading for me in high school. Luckily, it was a book that I actually enjoyed, unlike quite a few Emily Bronte novels that I’d have happily thrown on Guy’s stack for burning.

The basic premise of Fahrenheit 451 is that, in the near future, books are illegal. Firemen, once used to put out fires (though that’s not known to the general public) are now used to start fires, specifically at the homes of people who are found to be harboring books illegally.

The story goes into a lot of detail about the breakdown of the fabric of society, the slow disintegration of the bonds between family members that keep the world functioning. It talks about ignorance and doing things just because that’s how they’ve ‘always’ been done. Then it talks about hope and enlightenment, in the form of Guy realizing that things don’t have to stay the same and he can and should make a change.

I won’t ruin the book for you, but if you haven’t read it, you should.

I was flipping through articles in my RSS reader and I hit on two posts, nearly back-to-back from The Next Web that sounded like they were pages from the book.

The first article is titled: “This Could Be Massive: Interactive TV…”

So, why did this stand out to me? Well, one of the future technologies in Fahrenheit 451 is a television system that is installed in place of walls in the living room. The television programs are completely 3D, completely immersive and completely interactive to the point that the show can not progress unless the viewer moves it along by saying the proper things at the proper times and interacting with what is known as “the family”. The flaw that the author was trying to express here is that these fake people, this fake “family”, draws so much attention away from real life and real family that it causes a breakdown between people. It’s almost like what’s happening now with so many women complaining that men spend more time with their computers and video game consoles than with them, but on a grander scale. TNW’s article went on to detail what could be the first step towards the four-walled TV “family” that Bradbury imagined. It’s both exciting and frightening, if you believe the potential consequences that Bradbury laid out in his book.

Just after that I saw another one of their articles titled “Love to read? Too busy? Brain Shots can help.”

The article goes on to discuss how Brain Shots has condensed books down to 10k words and they can be read via computer, e-reader and some mobile phones. Some have even gone extra simple and are available as audio books. In one part of Fahrenheit 451, when Guy starts questioning the established order and his Fire Chief figures out what’s going on in his head, the Chief tries to ‘save’ him by explaining to him how things became the way they were. Long story short, he said that people did it to themselves. People couldn’t be satisfied with reading real literature, books and stories with real value, or messages that explained deeper emotions and feelings. He said that eventually people started reading things in digests, then as blurbs and snippets, and eventually as 30 second blasts over the four-walled TVs. He asked how you could condense a classic work of literature into a 30 second blast and still retain it’s true meaning? Everything became dumbed down to keep everyone happy. To keep things exciting! I think Twitter is sort of a first step towards what Bradbury had imagined. How many of you that use Twitter know a Twitter wannabe pundit that tries to condense the feeling and emotion of a whole work of literature into 140 characters? And then, of course, there’s this article talking about Brain Shots, which is literally taking a page from Bradbury’s book. I wouldn’t be surprised if his book was their inspiration.

Technology is a beautiful thing, but I hope we keep using it wisely and effectively and don’t reduce our culture and our whole body of world literature into meaningless blasts of drivel that lose their true meaning. Bradbury’s book may have been written half a century ago, but it’s becoming more and more meaningful as time goes on.

A few interesting quotes from the book:

“Remember the firemen are rarely necessary. The public stopped reading of its own accord. You firemen provide a circus now and then at which buildings are set off and crowds gather for the pretty blaze, but its a small sideshow indeed, and hardly necessary to keep things in line. So few want to be rebels anymore. And out of those few, most, like myself, scare easily. Can you dance faster than the White Clown, shout louder than ‘Mr. Gimmick’ and the parlor ‘families’? If you can, you’ll win your way, Montag. In any event, you’re a fool. People are having fun.”

“It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.”

This is definitely one of my favorite books.

Sony is trying to claim my content on YouTube violates their copyright!

July 7, 2010September 4, 2021 Bradley Farless8 Comments

I opened my e-mail this evening and found this message waiting for me:

help center | e-mail options | report spam

Dear BradleyF81,

Your video, Flexy Girls Performing on Orchard Road, may have content that is owned or licensed by Sony Music Entertainment.

No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.

Sincerely,
– The YouTube Team

© 2010 YouTube, LLC
901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066

I’ve heard a lot of stories about the music industry trying to claim that people’s home videos contain their copyrighted content for the most bizarre things, like bits of music played in the background, but I never expected it to happen to one of my videos.

Luckily, the video hasn’t actually been pulled. It has, however, been blocked from playing in Germany, as I found out by following up on the second link, which by the way should direct you to your own YouTube account’s copyright info so you can see if any of your videos have been blocked. Anyhow, when I clicked the link, this is what I saw:

I’ve watched it again just to be sure, but I can’t see that anything here belongs to Sony, other than the fact that it was recorded with a Sony camera, but that doesn’t transfer ownership to them. Does the tinny Chinese music belong to Sony? Maybe someone knows better than I do? And if it does, does this video constitute ‘fair use’ under US Copyright Law? Should I take the time to dispute it, or is their claim legit?

Here’s the video, of two girls doing an acrobatics performance on Orchard Road in Singapore:

Using Geisha Imagery To Sell Modern Products

June 29, 2010September 4, 2021 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

The following image is of a soap that appears to be popular in the Philippines, where most women (and quite a few of them men) are obsessed with whitening their skin and maintaining a fair complexion. The image of a painted geisha face very effectively communicates the idea of a fair complexion and the purpose of the soap.

It also puts across the idea that by using the soap you will be sophisticated, artistic and elite, which are all qualities possessed by true Japanese geisha. Contrary to what most people believe, the highest class of geisha do not sell sex but are instead entertainers who sell their skills with instruments, gaming and conversation to high class clientele like politicians and wealthy businessmen.

The iPad 3G is for sale in Manila, but WTF?

June 25, 2010September 4, 2021 Bradley Farless4 Comments

While we were out in Manila last night at Megamall we wandered into the electronics area to find some speakers for my laptop. Some of the ‘specially priced’ movies we’ve been picking up have low volume so we needed something to give it a bit of a boost. While we were there we saw this in the window:

The iPad3G is a pretty neat item. I personally have no desire to get one. I still think of it as nothing more than a giant iPod Touch. Plus, it doesn’t really match up with life in the Philippines. Walking around with something like that in your hand would make you an impressive… target. Ya. People would see that and that incident where the guy got his fingers ripped off while his iPad was being stolen would seem tame by comparison.

Anyway, what prompted me to take the photo was the price tag. The iPad isn’t being sold here officially, that I know of anyway, so the hand-imported ones are selling for higher than what they should. The price on that iPad is 59,950 PHP, or approximately 1,290 USD. Electronics in the Philippines typically carry a higher price tag. I think they’re highly taxed by the government, but this is just over the top.

The next ‘toy’ that I shell out money for will probably be the iPhone 5 next year, if even that. I’ve had to rearrange my priorities since coming here and I can think of plenty of other things I could spend that money on. My trusty iPhone 3G will just have to keep chugging along for a few more years.

I Guess It Couldn’t All Make It Through Shipping OK

June 7, 2010September 4, 2021 Bradley Farless4 Comments

One of the running jokes about having things shipped by the military is that you’re bound to have something get broken. When I was a kid, we did a military move from Hahn AFB in Germany back to the US and the movers managed to lose a whole section of a German wall shrunk, as well as damage some other stuff.

This is an example of a German wall shrunk. How do you lose even a section of something so big?

I thought I’d left that behind along with my service to the Army, but I guess mistreatment of shipped goods is a universal problem. My HP F2120 All-In-One didn’t quite survive the trip. The glass on the scanner bed was shattered in one corner. It’s a shame too, because I was hoping to get started on scanning stuff and now I have to see about getting reimbursed. I have no idea how to start the process. I guess we’ll take the receipt and pictures of the broken device to an LBC office to find out what the procedure is.

This is what’s left of my HP F2120 All-in-One. Thanks a lot guys!

The real issue is that there’s a huge price difference in these types of things between Singapore and the Philippines. Even if we get a full reimbursement on the scanner, it wouldn’t cover the cost of the exact same scanner in Manila. There’s a mark-up. Singapore is one of the cheapest places in the world to buy electronics, so unless we get a one-for-one exchange where they give us money to cover the purchase cost of a new unit, we’re just SOL.

Can’t win ‘em all I guess.

Speaking of that, I’m still engaged in an e-mail battle with Philippine Airlines to get a reimbursement on the pet carrier that they damaged during the fiasco where one of my cats wound up running around on Changi’s tarmac and in the belly of the plane before take-off.

Tomorrow (or later today) I’m heading to the Bureau of Immigration in Manila. I have to get my Visa taken care of before I wind up being here illegally. Hopefully that all goes smoothly!

Finally Replaced My Dying Beast of A Laptop

April 17, 2010September 4, 2021 Bradley Farless14 Comments

It’s been a busy couple of days, filled with long talks with my wife about plans for the beginning of next month, when I’ll be moving to the Philippines, along with our cats. It’s also been busy because I finally picked up a new laptop.

For those of you that have been keeping up with my blog for a while you’ll remember that about a year ago I started complaining about issues with my MacBook Pro. I’d originally bought the thing in March of 2007. I guess you could say it was a birthday present to myself, so I went all out and got the best specs and I wound up dropping about 3500 USD on it. 3 years on, I think it was a waste of money.

I first started noticing a problem with it about 5 months after I bought it, in August of 2007. At the time I was still in the US military, on a deployment in Kuwait. I was staying in a very quiet, nicely air conditioned barracks. It was an open bay barracks, meaning the whole thing was one big room, so noise was kept at a minimum out of respect for people who were working different shifts and may be asleep during the day. I was able to hear a faint clicking noise coming from the left internal fan. Being in Kuwait and locked down on an Army camp I had no way to do anything about it until I went on leave (vacation) in October.

As soon as I got to NYC I went to the 5th Avenue Apple store and dropped it off to be serviced. Roughly 6 days later, I had to go up there and demand that it be returned because they’d kept it longer than they said they would and I had to leave to go back to Kuwait. When the guy came back with it, he said that they’d found some dust inside the laptop, but there was nothing wrong with the fan.

The clicking noise continued and later research on the internet showed that it wasn’t an isolated problem. Of course, by the time I got back from Kuwait, finished the mad rush of paperwork, picking up my car and household goods, and going through all the medical processing, my warranty was expired. Not to mention that there was no Apple store around to take it to again anyway.

Additionally, during the last few months I was in Kuwait the DVD “Super” drive failed. It no longer recognized discs and would make some ‘clack, clack’ noises and then spit the DVD (or CD) back out. The only disc it seemed to accept properly was my Leopard installation disc.

A few months later, shortly after arriving in Singapore in February of 2008, the Express Card 34 slot broke. I was trying to insert an eSATA adapter and instead of hearing the familiar sound of the card seating, I heard something snap and break and the adapter just sat there, loose in the socket. The locking mechanism must have gotten stuck in the wrong position and been broken off when I inserted the card.

Thankfully, the thing held up well until May of last year. The noise from the fan started to increase but that was all.

May was when it really started to go bad on me though. The OS started to slow down considerably. Fresh installs did nothing to help it. Shortly after that the left fan finally gave out. Whenever I started doing anything that would generate a high amount of heat, like using 3D programs or watching Flash videos, the left fan would spin up and make a sound like a lawn mower dying.

Since then I’ve been putting back money when I was able and I was finally able to afford and justify the purchase of a new laptop.

Given my past experience with my MacBook Pro, I decided to go with something far cheaper and hopefully far more reliable. During that long ordeal with that beast of a machine I found out that Macs are plagued with hardware issues. I guess I really should have coughed up the extra money for the Apple Care Extended Warranty, but I figured that having spent so much on a premium product it would be reliable. That obviously wasn’t the case.

So, now I have a Lenovo Y450. It’s got an HD screen, an nVidia GeForce 210M video card, a 2.13 ghz dual core processor, 2 GB of RAM and it even sounds good. It has Dolby Home Theater software that’s supposed to make it kick ass. It’s also running Windows 7, which is taking some getting used to. I’ve primarily used OS X and Ubuntu for the last few years. The whole thing has a nice, solid feel to it though and the only trouble I’m having so far is finding programs to replace the ones I’m accustomed to. Oh, it came with freebies too: a shoulder bag and a wired mouse. The mouse works well, even without a mouse pad, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with the bag. It’s not a bright idea to walk around in Manila advertising that you’re carrying a laptop with you.

I also think that I’m done buying Apple products. For a long while anyway. I’ll use the iPods we have until they die and then maybe replace them. There’s probably a cheaper alternative that’s just as nice and supports more formats. I don’t think I’ll get another iPhone after this one either. It’s nice and all, but I hardly use the majority of the apps on the thing, the camera is crap and it seems to stay behind in functionality compared to competitors. That’s a story for another post though.

One last photo:

Dapper, The Great Investigator, examining the laptop box, perhaps to see if it’s suitable for use as a cat bed.

Singapore Should Endorse, Not Ban, Smokeless Nicotine Products

April 8, 2010 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

Singapore’s Health Minister, Khaw Boon Wan, recently made the following statement in a blog post:

These are chilling words for the anti-tobacco population. Some describe the dissolvable products as nicotine candies designed to appeal to children, making them life-long addicts. Reynolds have already found these products to be more appealing to women, besides allowing smokers to continue their habit in smoke-free locations, like offices.

That is why I am amending our current Tobacco Control Act to arm ourselves for the era of these new tobacco products, including e-cigarettes (yes, there is such a thing!).

Even the title of the current Act, Smoking (Control of Tobacco) Act has to be amended to reflect the new reality. The Bill will be introduced soon. I look forward to Singaporeans’ support for the Bill.

Whether it creates smoke or is smokeless, tobacco is highly addictive and it kills.

This statement was made in response to a new series of products being produced by Reynold’s American Inc., the makers of Camel and Pall Mall cigarettes, including strips, lozenges and dissolving wafers.

The blog post this quote is from redirects people to the Health Minister’s Facebook fan page for commenting, and the few comments left there seemed to be in favor of his initiative to ban these items from Singapore.

I’d like to highlight a perspective of this that everyone seems to be missing. Smokeless tobacco items like the ones mentioned in his post could be used as, and should be marketed as, ways to assist smokers in breaking the habit. He didn’t go into detail, but the products he’s describing seem to be nicotine releasing items that don’t contain tobacco at all. Often these products don’t contain the carcinogens that produce cancer as well.

The hardest part of getting over smoking is finding a new thing to do, other than putting a cigarette in your mouth. If you replace the habit of puffing a cigarette with an item that’s like a candy, you stop mentally associating the pleasurable feeling from nicotine with a smoke-producing cigarette. Eventually you can wean yourself off of the nicotine lozenges and switch to real lozenges. It helps ease the psychological burden of quitting.

As a smoker of 15 years, I can tell you that from various attempts, it’s always the psychological part of quitting that’s the hardest to resist; the association of pleasure with a smoke producing cigarette. There has to be a substitute item to break that association. A bag of nuts isn’t going to do it, and chewing gum isn’t even legal to be purchased in Singapore. I think by banning these items, Singapore wouldn’t be making the streets safer for anyone. It would, in fact, remove viable options for people attempting to quit.

The biggest threat from and to smokers is the smoke, whether it be first-hand or second-hand. If that’s the case, then the government should promote the use of smokeless alternatives for the benefit of everyone. If smokeless options, especially these items which simply release nicotine, become more popular than cigarettes, it would greatly reduce the number of cancer cases caused by cigarette smoke.

From a monetary perspective, smokeless tobacco products offer the government another avenue for collecting taxes. The same taxes that apply to cigarettes could be applied to these new products, preventing the government from losing their revenue stream.

I’d love to have access to these types of items for my own benefit in trying to quit smoking. I’d feel a lot better about myself if I popped a lozenge after a meal instead of lighting up and inconveniencing everyone around me, as well as ruining my lungs. It could also help me to finally be successful in quitting entirely. I think it’s a shame I don’t have access to them while in Singapore.

Al Jazeera English Is Still Available in Singapore

April 8, 2010 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

I was reading a blog post on Al Jazeera’s ‘The Asia Blog‘ about a correspondent’s experience in Singapore in 1994. He was saying that though Singapore has grown in leaps and bounds, some things don’t change in terms of media censorship. He questions whether or not the removal of Al Jazeera English was truly a commercial decision and whether or not StarHub would be allowed to make its own decision about whether or not to carry the station.

I’m not an expert on this, but just from my general impressions there is still an atmosphere of self-censorship for fear of lawsuits and other legal actions here. I think it’s mostly due to the government’s zealous use of libel laws to maintain a pristine image. So, people still tend to be very very careful about what they say in regards to the government or any government entity. I’m not writing this post to debate whether or not the practice of libel lawsuits is a valid method of ensuring government stability. I’m merely responding to what the correspondent said in his blog post and affirming that, from a foreign perspective, the atmosphere is still a bit like what he said it was in 1994.

That being said, it’s very easy to get outside news in Singapore through world-wide traditional news networks online. News via internet is not censored here, and Singapore is one of the most ‘connected’ countries I’ve ever seen. Internet service is very affordable here. Not having access at home is also not a deterrent to connecting to the rest of the world. Anyone who has a device capable of browsing the internet can gain access for free through the wireless@sg initiative, which places free public wi-fi in almost all public facilities, including malls and libraries. So, if people want an outside view it’s very easy for them to access it, including Al Jazeera content online.

I was first exposed to Al Jazeera English in Qatar, when I was stationed there as a US Soldier. I was a little skeptical of the station at first, due to its name, but after getting over my bias, I’ve recognized it as one of the best news stations available. It offers a unique perspective on the world and while I don’t subscribe to the idea of believing everything from just one station, I use it as a balance against the other news stations I consume.

In short, I love Al Jazeera English. I love the stories it covers. I love the diversity.

I also love how I can still watch AJE streaming live via its iPhone app, even though it has been taken off the air in Singapore. It looks a little fuzzy blown up in this image, but on my iPhone screen it’s clear. The sound is clear. It streams easily over home wi-fi.

So, if you love AJE programming and have an iPhone, you can still watch it. The app is free. Just make sure you’re using wi-fi or you might go over your monthly data allowance.