Barbie Bandits: The End

‘Barbie Bandits’ Are Sentenced in Georgia

MARIETTA, Ga. — The “Barbie bandits” who went on a shopping spree after they were videotaped wearing sunglasses and laughing during an $11,000 bank heist were sentenced Monday, one to jail and another to probation.

Ashley Miller, 19, will have to serve only two years of a 10-year sentence and must complete the rest on probation. She pleaded guilty to theft and drug charges.

Heather Johnston, also 19, was sentenced to 10 years’ probation for her role in the February 2007 heist in Acworth, northwest of Atlanta.

Ah, well.

After all the posts I did on the old blog, I felt I had to have a final one to wrap it all up.

Ashley’s stonewalling made it worse for her.

Heather cooperated.

Good luck to both. Don’t give the media any more reasons to write about you two girls. (At least, not any more bad reasons.)

iPhone App Store: Genres? Uh, No.

This screensnap at The Unofficial Apple Weblog intrigued and confused me:

WTF? Genres for software?

So I went to the official Apple QuickTime of the SDK presentation. At 1:04;29 I found this:

That TUAW screensnap is just plain wrong. I don’t know what else it is, but it’s wrong.

The second item in the App Store is Categories.

Who are you going to believe?

Some random screensnap or Steve Jobs?

Look At Us Online! We’re Diseased!

Excessive emails and text are a mental illness

PEOPLE who send excessive texts and emails may have a mental illness, according to an article in a leading psychiatric journal.

As more people leave the office computer, only to log on as soon as they get home, the American Journal of Psychiatry has found addiction to text messaging and emailing could be another form of mental illness.

The article, by Dr Jerald Block, said there were four symptoms: suffering from feelings of withdrawal when a computer cannot be accessed; an increased need for better equipment; need for more time to use it; and experiencing the negative repercussions of their addiction.

I have two words for this: Get Stuffed!

I never saw any reports in the pre-Net age that excessive TV viewing was a “mental illness.” I never saw any reports in the pre-Net age that excessive talking on the telephone was a “mental illness.” I never saw any reports in the pre-Net age that excessive letter-writing was a “mental illness.”

This is a bunch of baloney (to put in G-ratedly).

Some eggheads are positioning themselves to suck at a trough of government medical insurance benefits by sculpting a new “disease” out of the clay of this post-Net age.

Man, I wasn’t online for the past two hours. Did anybody notice? Instead, there will be eejits who will tote up the number of posts I’ve done today.

They’re the ones who need to “get a life.”

And if anything is a disease, it’s counting the number of blog posts someone does!

Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #011

Food stamps double since ’01
But price of food means they don’t go as far now

Nearly one in 10 Ohioans now receives food stamps, the highest number in the state’s history.

Caseloads have almost doubled just since 2001, with 1.1 million residents now collecting benefits, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

Low wages, unemployment and the rising cost of groceries, gasoline and other necessities are to blame for financial hardships facing many Ohio families.

Caseloads have been rising steadily in the past seven years, said Brian Harter, spokesman for the state agency which oversees the food-stamp program.

“Look at unemployment during this time,” he said.

Ohio’s jobless rate is 5.3 percent, up from 4.4 percent in 2001.

You think the greed-diseased sociopaths who headed Bear Stearns and pillaged it into non-existence are going to be applying for Food Stamps — ever?

They rape this nation — they rape us — and walk away with multi-million dollar payoffs.

Plus they’re going to get assistance to straighten out their mess from our tax dollars, courtesy of the Fed.

Eggheads: Make Up Your Pointy-Headed Minds!

Lost in MySpace: How a generation of children are being raised online, spending 20 hours a week on the internet

A generation of children are effectively being “raised online”, spending most of their free time on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, a report warns today.

It says that many under-16s spend more than 20 hours a week glued to the internet, three times higher than official estimates.

Now wait one frikkin minute here.

Go back before the Net and all the eggheads were wringing their hands over television viewing and videogame playing by kids.

What is the primary activity kids have to engage in to use the Net?

Something called r-e-a-d-i-n-g.

And that’s a hell of a lot better than TV viewing and game playing any day. I call it Win.

Update: They mention a video called “Girl Beat Up In Street.” It’s here. Because I can, that’s why. Plus it imparts a valuable lesson: Get a frikkin gun!

Drop-Dead FUGLY FAIL Phone-Thing

All-in-one device ‘Hybrid Dual Portable Computer’

Answer the call. It’s FAIL calling — collect!!!

Quote: Matt Assay

The inevitability of the iPhone

I resisted the iPhone for a year or so, but looking back it was inevitable that I’d end here.

It is the best-designed phone that I’ve ever seen or used.

Another assimilation — uh, convert to the Light.

April 1: Truckers Strike?

See this update.

Truckers “going broke” and threatening to strike

One thing the association is trying to do is talk to lawmakers and truckers about making sure that surcharges being charged to shippers are getting back to the people who paid for the gas. Surcharges are supposed to compensate for high fuel charges, but they must be negotiated with each shipper, and the truckers who pay at the pump aren’t always first in line to receive the surcharges.

Even when the surcharges do make it back to the driver, they are not enough.

“I turn down loads every day,” Little said. “The loads aren’t the problem — never have been.

“It’s the only thing I know how to do, driving a truck. But I sold my trailer the other day, and I’m not buying another one until something gets done.

“In no way, shape or form do truckers want to hurt this country. My whole deal on this thing is that I’m shutting down on April 1. Call it a strike, a shutdown or just flat-ass going broke.”

God bless the American trucker.

Giant corporate agribusiness grows the food — but the American trucker gets it to our stores.

Hey you truckers: excuse the political plug, but only one candidate would worry about you. Go do right this November!

Reference: Someone Coding For iPhone

Not An Artist

He’s apparently doing some sort of corporate thing:

My work with the iPhone SDK continues, working on three clients to our backend services at the moment. I’m very much looking forward to blogging about this as it’s cleared at work. But as you probably have noticed from my posts, working locally and synchronizing with the back-end is what I believe most iPhone applications are about. Do quick and stuff you need to remember on the iPhone, work out the details from your computer, keep everything in sync. That’s why I’m excited about Google’s data integration. That’s why I’m excited about integrating SQLite. That’s why I spend a lot of time working with SOAP integration. And of course, it’s all good fun. I’m tempted to say that working with a back-end is a lot easier than doing everything local. At least the satisfaction of seeing the work you do on the little screen influencing the real world is a lot better than it just influencing that screen.

I hope he’ll write about the app when it’s all done. Otherwise, this will be like reading a mystery that’s had the pages with the solution torn out of it!

Reference: Android Site

Android Guys

I’ve got too many bookmarks as it is. That’s partially why I have a blog. To dump things I know I’ll need later on here, where it’s easier to find them.