Under a Gibbous Moon

The latest iPhone’s release has been a bit of a mess. From signal issues (you’re holding it wrong), the super glass that scratches, defective screens, and dead cameras.

I’m not an Apple fan, but this has surprised me. With Apple’s obsessive quality control, this phone has a lot of problems out of the gate. So now, one has to wonder why. It seems to me that the iPhone 4 was released before its time. The only reason I can think of for Apple pushing out the iPhone before it was ready was to beat the release of several high profile Android devices in the next few months (specifically the Droid X and the Droid 2).

With Android making inroads with mobile developers and it’s impressive growth, it seems that Android is able to put enough pressure on Apple that they are making mistakes.

In yet another case of a scientist with too much time on his hands, and engineering professor rolled them bones some 144,000 times. He found that will roll a one approximately thirty percent of the time (instead of sixteen percent for true randomness.)

I think anyone who’s playing a roleplaying game for any length of time has discovered this little quirk. That’s why thieves with short swords always die horrible deaths and Star Wars D6 system was able to roll up a wookie who couldn’t break a stormtroopers neck.

In a statement as to why guns are bad, Mayor Richard Daley characterizes firearm owners thusly, ”If you have the right to have 30, 40 or 50 guns and all the ammunition, and you get drunk some weekend, and you’re going to have some fun in the home, you better be careful.”

He then claims to be fighting for the victims of crime at the same time he is working to disarm them. I think James over at Hell in a Handbasket knows plenty of people who would disagree with ole’ King Richard.

California has moved closer to destroying the last vestiges of gun rights to be found in the golden state. In a narrow victory, Assembly Bill 1934 passed the Senate Public Safety Committee, removing one of the last obstacles before it moves to a full vote.

In a complete lapse of common sense, California State Senator thinks that open carry is dangerous because it will all “gang-bangers” to carry weapons. Apparently, he thinks that if open carry is banned, then the criminals will disarm and everything will be roses.

It seems that California is home to the rare, law abiding criminal.

In an article in Slate, William Saletan tries to make the case that prohibiting people from donating blood based up certain criteria (he specifically uses homosexuality) is outdated.

Unfortunately, his arguments are terribly off base. He says that since all blood is now tested then it doesn’t matter if HIV positive people donate. He then goes on to say how safe the testing is since it’s error rate is somewhere around one in a million. Since approximately sixteen million units of blood are used each year, that means approximately sixteen people will have their lives irrevocably changed because of this stand.

If these sixteen people isn’t good enough, let’s do simple math. It costs money to draw blood. Donors must be screened and then you have to pay someone to draw the blood. Then the blood has to be tested and stored. Of course, all the juice and cookies aren’t free either.

Simply put, allowing high risk people to donate just increases these costs. The reason their high risk is that statistical odds are that more of their blood will have to be dumped (and therefore all the collection and testing money wasted).

What the author fails to realize that these prohibitions are in place not on bigotry but on an acceptable cost/benefit ratio.